1 


^32. 


University  of  Caiitornia. 

FROM   THE   LIBRARY   OF 

DR.    FRANCIS     LIEBER, 
Professor  of  History  and  Law  in  Columbia  College,  Now  York. 


I 


THE  GIFT  OF 

MICHAEL    REESE, 

Of  San  Francisco. 
1S73. 


MiHWjBIUWLUtll—> 


hts. 


Library 


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THE 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND 


THOMAS  MOORE,  ESQ. 


*-^  ^  ^ 

CAREY,  LEA,  &  BLANCHARD. 


1835. 


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ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLCXJICAL 

TABLE 

OF  THE 

HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


VOL.  I. 

CHAPTER  I. 
B  .c.  Page 

1000.    Celtic  Origin  of  the  Irish 11 

Different  Fortunes  of  Ireland  and  Britain  II 

Phojnician  Intercourse  with  the  Irish 12 

The  Belgffi,  or  Fir-boJgs 12 

Objections  answered  ;  Authority  of  Tacitus 13 

Homer's  Knowledge  of  Isles  beyond  the  Pillars  from  the  Phoeni- 
cian Voyagers 14 

The  Argonautics  ;  Ireland  named  lernis 15 

A  Work  of  the  Age  of  Aristotle  names  the  two  chief  British 

Isles,  Albion  and  lerne 15 

The  Phoenicians  keep  their  Trade  secret 15 

The  Western  or  Tin  Isles  first  explored  by  the  Massilian  Greeks  16 

The  Periplus  of  Hanno 16 

Characteristic  Features  of  Ancient  Ireland 17 

Inscription  at  Tangiers 18 

Authority  of  Herodotus 18 

Ancient  Ireland  better  known  than  Britain  ;  Authorities 19 

Geography  of  Ptolemy 19 

Tacitus  ;  Life  of  Agricola 20 

Intercourse  of  Ireland  with  the  Phoenician  Spaniards 21 

The  Title,  Sacred  Isle  ;  Authority  of  Plutarch ;  Diodorus  Siculus  22 

Geography  of  Strabo  ;  Ireland  likened  to  Samothrace 23 

-,  Traditions  of  Ireland  ;  Intercourse  with  Gallicia 23 

•    Opinions  of  Antiquaries 24 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  earliest  Superstitions  traceable  in  the  Monuments  of  Ire- 
land    25 

Three  Stages  of  Superstition 26 

Magi,  or  Druids 26 

Sun  Worship 27 

Moon  Worship 28 

Fire  and  Water  Worship 29 

Sacred  Fountains 29 

The  Field  of  Slaughter  ;  Child-sacrifice 30 

1* 


VI  ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE. 

B.  c.  Page 

Round  Towers  of  Ireland 31 

Opinions  about  theni 32 

Christian  Emblems  on  those  of  Swords  and  Donoughmore. ...  34 

Probably  Fire-Temples 34 

Connexion  of  Sun-Worship  with  Astronomy 37 

The  Round  Towers  called  Celestial  Indexes 37 

Beyond  the  reach  of  Historical  Record 39 

Other  ancient  Monuments  of  Ireland  ;  the  Cromleach 39 

The  Lia  Fail,  or  Stone  of  Destiny 41 

Rocking  Stones 41 

Sacred  Hills 43 

The  Dynasts  inaugurated  thereon 44 

Barrows  and  Cairns 45 

Sacred  Groves  and  Trees 46 

CHAPTER  III. 

Irish  Druidism  ;  of  a  mixed  Character 48 

Different  from  that  of  Gaul,  as  recorded  by  the  Romans 49 

British  Druids  not  mentioned  by  Cssar  ;  tlie  Inference 50 

Early  Heathen  Pre-eminence  of  Ireland 52 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Learning  of  the  Irish  Druids  ;  Ancient  Language 53 

Phoenician  and  Irish  Alphabets 54 

Early  Use  of  Letters  in  Ireland 56 

Proofs  thereof 56 

Ogham  Character 57 

Introduction  of  the  Roman  Character 62 

Mistaken  Identity  of  the  Irish  Language  with  the  Punic  of 

Plautus 63 

Astronomical  Skill  of  the  Irish  Druids 65 

CHAPTER  V. 

Opposite  Opinions  respecting  ancient  Ireland 68 

Mixture  of  Truth  and  Fable 70 

Fabulous  Accounts  of  Partholan 70 

The  Fir-bolgs 71 

The  Tuatha-de-Danaan 73 

Milesian  or  Scotic  Race    73 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Colonization  of  Ireland 75 

Spanish  Settlers 75 

Supposed  Gaulish  Colony 77 

(Question  whether  the  Belgae  were  Celtic  or  Teutonic 77 

Colonization  of  the  south-western  Parts  from  Spain 79 

Various  Spanish  Colonies 79 

The  Scythic  or  Scotic  Settlements 81 

Fabulous  Accounts  by  the  Bards 83 

Recent  Date  of  the  Scotic  Colony 84 

Proofs  thereof 84 

Antiquarian  Errors 89 

The  Picts 90 

The  ancient  Britons  and  Welsh  probably  not  the  same  Race. . .  91 

Radical  Differences  between  the  Gaelic  and  Cumraig 91 

The  Picts  were  the  Progenitors  of  the  Welsh 93 

Of  Cimbric  Origin 93 

Romances  of  the  Round  Table 94 


ANALYTICAL   AND   CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE.  VU 


CHAPTER  VII. 
B.  c.  Page 

200.     Reign  of  Kimbaoth 96 

Of  Heber  and  Heremon,  Sons  of  Milesius 97 

First  Coming  of  the  Picts 98 

Gold  Mines 99 

Classes  distinguished  by  Colours 100 

The  royal  Legislator,  Ollamh  Fodhla 100 

His  Institutions  ;  Convention  of  Tara 100 

Chronicle  of  Events  ;  Psalter  of  Tara 101 

Palace  of  Emania 102 

Reign  of  Hugony  the  Great 103 

A.  D.  2.  Reign  of  Conary  the  Great ;  Ossianic  Poems 104 

40.  Privileges  of  the  Bards ;  abused  by  them 105 

The  Bardic  Order  reformed ;  Conquovar 105 

75—82.  Expedition  of  Agricola  to  Britain 106 

An  Irish  Traitor  in  the  Roman  Camp 107,  108 

The  Irish  aid  the  Picts  against  the  Romans 108 

Belgic  Revolt  and  Massacre 109 

90.  Carbre  Cat-can  raised  to  the  Throne 109 

Disinterestedness  of  his  Son  Moran  ;  Moran's  Collar 110 

126.  Second  Revolt  (of  the  Atticots) 110 

130.  Tuathal  the  Acceptable Ill 

Assembled  States  at  Tara Ill 

Boarian  Tribute 112 

164.  Jurisprudence  ;  the  Eric 113 

Feidlim  the  Legislator  ;  Con  of  the  Hundred  Battles 114 

258.  Irish  Settlement  in  Argyleshire ;  Carbry  Riada 115 

The  Irish  exclusively  called  Scoti ;  North  Britain  called  Albany  116 

Cormac  Ulfadha 116 

His  Accomplishments  and  Achievements 117 

State  of  Religion 118 

Recluse  Druidesses 118 

Fin-Mac -Cumhal,  by  Moderns  called  Fingal 119 

Oisin  and  Osgar 119 

The  Fianna  Eirinn,  or  Militia  of  Ireland 120 

Slaughter  of  them 121 

Groundless  Pretensions  of  Scotch  Writers ;  Forgeries  of  Boece  122 

Fabric  of  Buchanan,  Mackenzie,  &c 123 

Destroyed  by  StillingHeet 124 

Forgeries  of  Macpherson 124 

Examination  thereof. 126 

Historic  Value  of  the  Imposture 129 

None  but  Irish  Books  among  the  Highlanders 129 

Long  Connexion  of  the  Irish  and  Highlanders 130 

Expedition  of  Theodosius 131 

327.  Battle  of  Dubcomar ;  the  Druid  of  the  Bloody  Hand 131,  132 

A  six  Days'  Battle 132 

396.  Irish  Invasion  of  Britain 132 

Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages 133 

Passes  from  Britain  to  Armoric  Gaul. 134 

Providential  Captivity  of  an  Armorican  Youth 134 

406.  Datliy,  the  last  Pagan  King  of  Ireland 134 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Credibility  of  Irish  Annals  ;  Tigernach  ;  the  Four  Masters 135 

Nennius  and  Geoffry  of  Monmouth 136 

Collation  of  Annals 137 

Reception  of  Christianity  in  Ireland 141 

Its  easy  Adoption 142 

Record  of  Events  continued 143 

Its  Authenticity I45 


VUl         ANALYTICAL   AND    CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
.  D.  Page 

Early  State  of  the  Heathen  Irish 148 

Features  visible  to  this  Day 148 

Partition  of  Sovereignty 149 

Succession  ;  Tanistry 149 

Exchange  of  Subsidy  and  Tribute 150 

Cause  of  Discords 152 

And  of  the  Want  of  a  National  Spirit 152 

Division  of  Lands  and  Goods  upon  each  elective  Succession. ..  154 

Gavelkind  ;  Females  excluded 155 

Natural  Children  admitted  with  legitimate 155 

Custom  of  Slavery 158 

Social  Contracts - 158 

Urged  respectively  in  support  of  adverse  Opinions 159 

Examination  of  Authorities 160 

Ancient  Contrasts  of  Manners  visible  at  the  Close  of  the  last 

Century  in  Ireland 163 

The  early  Britons  of  ill  Repute  like  the  Irish 164 

Testimony  of  St.  Jerome 164 

Early  Irish  Navigation  ;  Currachs 166 

Himilco's  Voyage 166 

The  great  Road  from  Galway  to  Dublin 167 

The  great  Road  from  Dover  to  Anglesey,  called  "  the  Way  of 

the  Irish" 167 

The  Inference 167 

.  The  Irish  Raths  or  Hill-fortresses 168 

Curious  and  costly  Remains  dug  up 173 

Coal  Works 173 

Swords  of  Brass  like  those  found  at  CanniE 174 

CHAPTER  X. 

Mission  of  St.  Patrick 175 

His  Success  with  little  Violence 176 

His  judicious  Conduct 176 

Adopts  the  Pagan  Customs 176 

The  Heresiarchs,  Pelagius  and  Celestus 178 

Palladius 181 

Sketch  of  the  Life  of  St.  Patrick 181 

Born  near  the  Site  of  Boulogne-sur-mer 182 

Probably  in  387 182 

Made  captive  by  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages 182 

403.  Carried  captive  to  Ireland 183 

Escaped  or  released  from  Bondage 183 

410.  His  Studies  at  Tours 183 

His  Remembrances  and  Dreams  of  Ireland 183 

422.  Arrives  there 185 

Sudden  Conversion  of  Dicho 185 

His  old  Master,  Milcho,  an  inveterate  Heathen,  would  not  see 

him 186 

His  Paschal  Fire  ;  Prophecy  of  the  Magi 186,  187 

He  preaches  at  Tara,  before  the  King  and  States 187 

Tolerant  Genius  of  Paganism 187 

Revisits  the  Scene  of  his  Dream 188 

Converts  two  Princesses 188 

Destroys  the  Idol  of  "  The  Field  of  Slaughter" 189 

His  successful  Career 189 

Establishes  the  See  of  Armagh 193 

Writes  his  Confession 194 

465.  Dies  in  his  Retreat  at  Sabhul 194 

His  Disciples  Benignus,  Secundinus,  &c 195 

The  Irish  Poet  Sedulius,  or  Shiel 196 


ANALYTICAL   AND   CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE.  IX 


CHAPTER  XI. 
i.  V.  Page 

Retrospect  of  Christianity  in  Britain 197 

Britain  reluctantly  separates  from  Rome 197 

The  Letter  styled  "  The  Groans  of  the  Britons" 198 

The  three  Devastations  of  Britain 199 

Peaceful  Triumphs  of  Religion  in  Ireland. 200 

500.  Establishment  of  the  Sons  of  Erck  in  North  Britain 201 

Power  of  the  Hy-Nial  Family 201 

Kenneth  Mac-Alpine  vanquishes  the  Picts 201 

The  Apostle  Columbkill 202. 

Historic  Use  of  Lives  of  Saints  ;  Montesquieu  ;  Gibbon. . .  202,  203 

Dependence  of  the  Church  of  Ireland  on  Rome 203 

Mistaken  Opinion  of  Archbishop  Usher 203 

Prayers  for  the  Dead 204 

Pilgrimages 205 

Marriage  of  the  Clergy. 205 

CHAPTER  XXL 

Parentage  of  Columbkill 207 

Why  so  named 207 

His  Labours 208 

563.  His  Mission  to  the  Western  Isles 210 

572.  Death  of  Conal,  King  of  the  British  Scots 211 

St.  Columbkill  revisits  Ireland 212 

Interferes  on  behalf  of  the  Bards 213 

Death  of  the  Saint 214 

St.  Columbanus,  also  Irish  ;  ofteil  confounded  with  him 215 

Reign  of  Diarmid  217 

Last  Meeting  at  Tara 217 

529.  Retrospect  of  the  Institution  of  Nunneries 219 

St.  Brigid  of  Kildare 219 

Career  of  Columbanus  abroad 223 

He  rebukes  King  Thierry 223 

His  Courage  and  Labours 224 

610.  Arrives  at  Milan 225 

615.  Founds  the  Monastery  of  Bobbio  ;  dies ; . . .  227 

His  Writings 227 

CHAPTER  Xlll. 

Paschal  Differences 229 

630.  Letter  of  Pope  Honorius 231 

633.  Deputation  to  Rome 232 

Its  Return  and  Report 232 

Effects  of  the  Controversy  beneficial 232 

Cummian,  an  Irish  Saint,  opposed  to  Columbanus 232 

Mutual  Tolerance 233 

St.  Aidan  and  King  Oswald  (Anglo-Saxon);  See  of  Lindisfarne, 

called  the  Holy  Isle 234 

Rapid  Succession  of  Irish  Kings ;  the  Inference 235 

Callus  founds  the  Abbey  of  St.  Gall  (Switzerland) 236 

650.  Irish  Missionaries  in  France 237 

Irish  Missionaries  in  Brabant ^  ... .  238 

Irish  Missionaries  on  the  Rhine 239 

Solar  Eclipse  ;  the  Yellow  Plague 239 

664.  Hospitable  Reception  of  Foreign  Students  in  Ireland 240 

Disputation  at  the  Monastery  of  St.  Hilda 240 

Controversy  of  the  Tonsure 242 

684.  Northumbrian  Expedition  to  Ireland 242 

King  Egfrid,  the  Aggressor,  slain 243 

Paschal  System  of  Rome  established  by  Adamnan 243 


ANALYTICAL   AND    CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE. 

D.  Page 

St.  Kilian,  Apostle  of  Franconia 245 

Divorce  of  Geilana  by  the  Persuasion  of  the  Saint 245 

She  causes  him  to  be  waylaid  and  murdered 245 

The  Scholastic  Philosophy  originated  with  Irish  Divines 246 

Decay  of  Irish  Learning  at  the  Approach  of  the  Eighth  Century  247 

Virgilius,  or  Feargal 247 

His  Conjecture  of  the  Sphericity  of  the  Earth 248 

Accused  of  Heresy  therein 248 

Is  made  a  Bishop,  and  canonized 248 

Clement  and  Albinus,  Irish  Scholars  ;  become  known  to  Charle- 
magne; their  curious  Device 250 

Reference  to  Denina,  Tiraboschi,  and  Muratori 250,  251 

Dungal ;  his  Letter  to  Charlemagne 251 

Greek  Ecclesiastics  attracted  to  Ireland 253 

The  Saxon  Scholar  Aldhelm 254 

Sedulius  the  Second  and  Donatus 255 

John  Scotus,  called  Erigena 256 

Translates  into  Latin  the  Greek  Writings  supposed  of  Diony- 

sius  the  Areopagite  ;  his  consequent  Mysticism 257 

His  Notions  of  God  and  the  Soul 258 

Denies  the  Eternity  of  Punishment 259 

Fables  of  his  being  known  to  King  Alfred 260 

His  Character 260 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Review  of  Learning  and  the  Arts ^  .  262 

Value  of  the  Argument  of  the  Want  of  MSS.  Remains 262 

Remains  preserved  by  the  Annalists 264 

Origin  and  Use  of  Rhyme    265 

Early  Connexion  of  Poetry  and  Music 266 

The  Irish  Harp 267 

Excellence  of  early  Music " 267 

Irish  Psalmody , 268 

Church  Architecture 269 

State  of  Agriculture 270 

Works  in  Metal,  Stone,  and  Colours 271 

Chariots  used  in  War  and  Travelling 271 

The  Brehon  Laws 272 


f   Library. 

HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.    ^ 


CHAPTER  I. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  IRISH  PEOPLE. — EARLY  NOTICES  OF  IRELAND. 

There  appears  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  first  inhabitants  of 
Ireland  were  derived  from  the  same  Celtic  stock  which  supplied 
Gaul,  Britain,  and  Spain  with  their  original  population.  Her 
language,  the  numerous  monuments  she  still  retains  of  that 
most  ancient  superstition  which  the  first  tribes  who  poured  from 
Asia  into  Europe  are  known  to  have  carried  with  them  wherever 
they  went,  sufficiently  attest  the  true  origin  of  her  people. 
Whatever  obscurity  may  hang  round  the  history  of  the  tribes 
that  followed  this  first  Eastern  swarm,  and  however  opinions 
may  still  vary,  as  to  whether  they  were  of  the  same,  or  of  a 
different  race,  it  seems,  at  least,  cert£?ln,  that  the  Celts  were  the 
first  inhabitants  of  the  western  parts  of  Europe ;  and  that,  of 
the  language  of  this  most  ancient  people,  the  purest  dialect  now 
existing  is  the  Irish. 

It  might  be  concluded,  from  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the 
two  islands  to  each  other,  that  the  fortunes  of  Britain  and  Ire- 
land would,  in  those  times,  be  similar;  that,  in  the  various 
changes  and  mixtures  to  which  population  was  then  subject, 
from  the  successive  incursions  of  new  tribes  from  the  East,  such 
vicissitudes  would  be  shared  in  common  by  the  two  islands,  and 
the  same  flux  and  reflux  of  population  be  felt  on  both  their  shores. 
Such  an  assumption,  however,  would,  even  as  to  earlier  times, 
be  rash ;  and,  how  little  founded  it  is,  as  a  general  conclusion, 
appears  from  the  historical  fact,  that  the  Romans  continued  in 
military  possession  of  Britain  for  near  four  hundred  years,  with- 
out a  single  Roman,  during  that  whole  period,  having  been  known 
to  set  foot  on  Irish  ground. 

The  system  of  Whitaker  and  others,  who,  from  the  proximity 
of  the  two  islands,  assume  that  the  population  of  Ireland  must 
have  been  all  derived  from  Britain,  is  wholly  at  variance,  not 
merely  with  probability,  but  with  actual  evidence.  That,  in 
the  general  and  compulsory  movement  of  the  Celtic  tribes  towards 


12  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  west,  an  island,  like  Ireland,  within  easy  reach  both  of  Spain 
and  Gaul,  should  have  been  left  unoccupied  during  the  long 
interval  it  must  have  required  to  stock  England  with  inhabitants, 
seems,  to  the  highest  degree,  improbable.  But  there  exists, 
independently  of  this  consideration,  strong  evidence  of  an  early- 
intercourse  between  Spain  and  Ireland,  in  the  historical  tradi- 
tions of  the  two  countries,  in  the  names  of  the  different  Spanish 
tribes  assigned  to  the  latter  by  Ptolemy,  and,  still  more,  in  the 
sort  of  notoriety  which  Ireland  early,  as  we  shall  see,  acquired, 
and  which  could  only  have  arisen  out  of  her  connexion  with 
those  Phoenician  colonies,  through  whom  alone  a  secluded  island 
of  the  Atlantic  could  have  become  so  well  known  to  the  world. 

At  a  later  period,  when  the  Belgic  Gauls  had  gained  such  a 
footing  in  Britain,  as  to  begin  to  encroach  on  the  original  Celtic 
inhabitants,  a  remove  still  farther  to  the  west  was,  as  usual,  the 
resource  of  this  people ;  and  Ireland,  already  occupied  by  a  race 
speaking  a  dialect  of  the  same  language, — the  language  com- 
mon, at  that  period,  to  all  the  Celts  of  Europe, — afforded  the 
refuge  from  Gothic  invasion*  which  they  required.  It  has  been 
shown  clearly,  from  the  names  of  its  mountains  and  rivers, — 
those  unerring  memorials  of  an  aboriginal  race, — that  the  first 
inhabitants  of  the  country  now  called  Wales  must  have  been  a 
people  whose  language  was  the  same  with  that  of  the  Irish,  as 
the  mountains  and  waters  of  that  noble  country  are  called  by 
Irish  names.!  At  what  time  the  Belgce,  the  chief  progenitors 
of  the  English  nation,  began  to  dispossess  the  original  Celtic  in- 
habitants, is  beyond  the  historian's  power  to  ascertain ;  as  is  also 
the  question,  whether  those  Belgse  or  Fir-bolgs,  who  are  known 

*  Without  entering  here  into  the  still  undecided  question,  as  to  whether 
the  Belgae  were  Celts  or  Goths,  I  shall  merely  observe,  that  the  fair  conclu- 
sion from  the  following  passage  of  Ccesar  is,  that  this  people  were  of  a 
Gothic  or  Teutonic  descent. 

"  Cum  ab  his  quaereret,  quae  civitates  quantseque  in  armis  essent,  et  quid  in 
bello  possent,  sic  reperiebat ;  plerosque  Belgas  esse  ortos  ab  Germanis ;  Rhe- 
numque  antiquitus  transductos,  propter  loci  fertilitatem  ibi  consedisse  ;  Gal- 
losque,  qui  ea  loca  incolerent.expulisse."— Z)c  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  ii.  c.  4. 

t  Lhuyd's  Preface  to  his  Irish  Dictionary,  in  the  Appendix  to  Nicholson's 
Historical  Library.— Lhuyd  extends  his  remark  to  England  as  well  as  Wales. 
"  Whoever  takes  notice,"  he  says,  "  of  a  great  number  of  the  names  of  the 
rivers  and  mountains  throughout  the  kingdom,  will  find  no  reason  to  doubt 
but  the  Irish  must  have  been  the  inhabitants  when  those  names  were  im- 
posed on  them."  In  other  words,  the  first  inhabitants  of  Britain  and  Wales 
were  Celts  or  Gael. 

The  author  of  Mona  Antiqua  has,  without  intending  it,  confirmed  the 
truth  of  Lhuyd's  remark,  by  stating,  that  the  vestiges  of  old  habitations  still 
to  be  seen  on  the  heaths  and  hills  of  Anglesey,  are  called,  to  this  day,  Cyttie'r 
Gwyddelod,  or  the  Irishmen's  Cottages.  These  words,  too,  it  appears  (sec 
Preface  to  O'Brien's  Irish  Dictionary),  "  should  more  properly  and  literally 
be  rendered  Irishmen's  habitations,  or  seats  ;  for  the  Irish  word  Cathair,  of 
which  Ceitir  is  a  corruption,  signifies  either  a  city  or  town,  or  habitation." 


IRELAND  FIRST  INHABITED  BY  CELTS.  13 

to  have  passed  over  into  Ireland,  went  directly  from  Gaul,  or 
were  an  offset  of  those  who  invaded  Britain. 

But  however  some  of  the  ingredients  composing  their  popula- 
tion may  have  become,  in  the  course  of  time,  comnion  to  both 
countries,  it  appears  most  probable  that  their  primitive  inhabi- 
tants were  derived  from  entirely  different  sources ;  and  that, 
while  Gaul  poured  her  Celts  upon  the  shores  of  Britain,  the 
population  of  Ireland  was  supplied  from  the  coasts  of  Celtic 
Spain.*  It  is,  at  least,  certain,  that,  between  these  two  latter 
countries,  relations  of  affinity  had  been,  at  a  very  early  period,  es- 
tablished ;  and  that  those  western  coasts  of  Spain,  to  which  the 
Celtic  tribes  were  driven,  and  where  afterwards  Phoenician  colo- 
nies established  themselves,  were  the  very  regions  from  whence 
this  communication  with  Ireland  was  maintained. 

The  objections  raised  to  this  supposed  origin  and  intercourse, 
on  the  ground  of  the  rude  state  of  navigation  in  those  days,  are 
deserving  of  but  little  attention.  It  was  not  lightly,  or  without 
observation,  such  a  writer  as  Tacitus  asserted,  that  the  first 
colonizing  expeditions  were  performed  by  water,  not  by  landf ; 
and  however  his  opinion,  to  its  whole  extent,  may  be  questioned, 
the  result  of  inquiry  into  the  affinities  of  nations  seems  to  have 
established,  that  at  no  time,  however  remote,  has  the  interposi- 
tion of  sea  presented  much  obstacle  to  the  migratory  dispositions 
of  mankind.  The  history,  indeed,  of  the  Polynesian  races,  and 
of  their  common  origin — showing  to  what  an  immense  extent, 
over  the  great  ocean,  even  the  simplest  barbarians  have  found 
the  means  of  wafting  the  first  rudiments  of  a  peoplej — should 
incline  us  to  regard  with  less  scepticism  those  coasting  and,  in 
general,  land-locked  voyages,  by  which  most  of  the  early  colo- 
nization of  Europe  was  effected ; — at  a  period,  too,  when  the 
Phoenicians,  with  far  more  knowledge,  it  is  probable,  of  the 
art  of  navigation,  than  modern  assumption  gives  them  credit 

*  That  the  Irish  did  not  consider  themselves  as  being  of  Gaulish  origin, 
appears  from  their  having  uniformly  used  the  word  Gall  to  express  a 
foreigner,  or  one  speaking  a  different  language. 

t  Nee  terra  olim,  sed  classibus  advehebantur,  qui  mutare  sedes  quasrebant. 
■—Oerman.  c.  2. 

I  "  A  comparison  of  their  languages  (those  of  the  Polynesian  races)  has 
furnished  a  proof,  that  all  the  most  remote  insular  nations  of  the  Great 
Ocean  derived  their  origin  from  the  same  quarter,  and  are  nearly  related 
to  some  tribes  of  people  inhabiting  a  part  of  the  Indian  continent,  and  the 
isles  of  the  Indian  Archipelago."— PritcAard's  Eastern  Origin  of  the  Celtic 
JVatiovs. 

Dr.  Kennel,  in  noticing  some  doubts  respecting  the  circumnavigation  of 
Africa  by  the  Egyptians,  says  sensibly,  "  Since  so  many  of  these  (ancient) 
authorities  concur  in  the  behalf  that  Africa  had  been  sailed  round,  we  can- 
not readily  guess  why  it  should  be  doubted  at  present,  unless  the  moderns 
wish  to  appropriate  to  themselves  all  the  functions  and  powers  of  nautical 
discovery."— On  the  Geographical  System  of  Herodotus. 

Vol.  I.  2 


14  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

for,  were  to  be  seen  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  Baltic,  the  At- 
lantic,— every  where  upon  the  waters.  With  respect  to  the 
facilities  of  early  intercourse  between  Ireland  and  Spain,  the 
distance  from  Cape  Ortegal  to  Cape  Clear,  which  lie  almost 
opposite  to  each  other,  north  and  south,  is  not  more  than  150 
leagues, — two  thirds  of  which  distance,  namely,  as  far  as  the 
island  of  Ushant,  might  all  have  been  performed  within  sight 
of  land.*  Reserving,  however,  all  fiirther  investigation  into 
this  point,  till  we  come  to  treat  of  the  different  colonies  of  Ire- 
land, I  shall  here  endeavour  to  collect  such  information  respect- 
ing her  early  fortunes  as  the  few,  but  pregnant,  notices  scattered 
throughout  antiquity  afford. 

With  one  important  exception,  it  is  from  early  Greek  writers 
alone  that  our  first  glimpses  of  the  British  isles,  in  their  silent 
course  througli  past  ages,  are  obtained ;  nor  was  it  till  a  com- 
paratively late  period  that  the  Greeks  themselves  became 
acquamted  with  their  existence.  The  jealousy  with  which  the 
Phcenicians  contrived  to  conceal  from  their  Mediterranean 
neighbours  these  remote  sources  of  their  wealth,  had  prevent- 
ed, even  in  the  time  of  Homer,  more  than  a  doubtful  and  glim- 
mering notion  of  a  Sea  of  Isles  beyond  the  Pillars  from  reaching 
the  yet  unexcursive  Greeks.  Enough,  however,  had  transpired 
to  awaken  the  dreams  alike  of  the  poet  and  the  adventurer ; 
and  while  Homer,  embellishing  the  vague  tales  which  he  had 
caught  up  from  Phoenician  voyagersf,  placed  in  those  isles  the 
abodes  of  the  Pious  and  the  Elysian  fields  of  the  Blest|,  the 
thoughts  of  the  trader  and  speculator  were  not  less  actively 
occupied  in  discovering  treasures  without  end  in  the  same  poetic 
regions.  Hence  all  those  popular  traditions  of  the  Fortunate 
Islands,  the  Hesperides^,  the  Isle  of  Calypso, — creations  called 
up  in  these  "  unpathed  waters,"  and  adopted  into  the  poetry  of 
the  Greeks,  before  any  clear  knowledge  of  the  realities  had 

*  See  Smith's  History  of  Cork,  book  i.  chap.  i.  According  to  Appian,  the 
Spaniards  of  his  time  used  to  perform  the  passage  to  Britain,  with  the  tide 
in  their  favour,  in  half  a  day.—"  Quando  in  Britanniam,  una  cum  aestu 
maris  transvehuntur  quae  quidem  trajectio  dimidiati  diei  est."—lberica. 

t"That  Homer  had  the  opportunities  mentioned,  and  that  he  did  not 
neglect  to  improve  them,  will  best  appear  by  considering  what  he  has  really 
learned  from  the  Phoenicians.  This  will  be  a  certain  proof  of  his  having 
conversed  with  them."— Blackwell,  Enquiry  into  the  Ltfe  and  Writings  of 
Homer,  sect.  11. 

X  'O  Toivvv  i:oit}rt}g  raq  roaavras  crpariai  tri  ra  £<j^aTa  r/;?  iSi^piai 
iiTTopr)KU)Sf  nvvOavoftevog  6e  xai  it^ovtov  koi  rag  aWas  aptraj  (oi  yap  <totviKes 
eiriXovv  rovro)  tvravBa  tov  twv  evcc6u>v  eitXaae  ;^wpov  koi  to  HXro-jov  -ztitov. 
— Strabon.  lib.  iii. 

§  Plutarch,  de  Facie  in  Orb.  Lun.— Hesiod.  Theogou. 


IRELAND  KNOWN  TO  THE  PHOENICIANS.  15 

reached  them.  In  the  "  Argonautics*,"  a  poem  written,  it  is 
supposed,  more  than  500  years  before  the  Christian  era,  there 
is  a  sort  of  vague  dream  of  the  Atlantic,  in  which  Ireland 
alone,  under  the  Celtic  name  of  lernis,  is  glanced  at,  without 
any  reference  whatever  to  Britain.  It  is  thought,  moreover, 
to  have  been  by  special  information,  direct  from  the  Phoeniciansf, 
that  the  poet  acquired  this  knowledge  ;  as  it  appears  from 
Herodotus,  that  not  even  the  names  of  the  Cassiterides,  or 
British  Isles,  were  known  in  Greece  when  he  wrote  ;  and  the 
single  fact,  that  they  were  the  islands  from  which  tin  was  im- 
ported, comprised  all  that  the  historian  himself  had  it  in  his 
power  to  tell  of  them. 

The  very  first  mention  that  occurs  of  the  two  chief  British 
isles  is  in  a  work]:  written,  if  not  by  Aristotle,  by  an  author 
contemporary  with  that  philosopher, — the  treatise  in  question 
having  been  dedicated  to  Alexander  the  Great.  The  length 
of  time,  indeed,  during  which  the  monopoly  of  the  trade  in  tin 
by  the  Phoenicians  was  kept  not  only  inviolate,  but  secret, 
forms  one  of  the  most  striking  marvels  of  ancient  history.  For 
although,  as  far  back  as  about  400  years  before  Herodotus  wrote, 
there  had  reached  Homer,  as  we  have  seen,  some  faint  glimpses 
of  an  ocean  to  the  west,  which  his  imagination  had  peopled 
with  creations  of  its  own,  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  Aristotle^ 
— near  a  whole  century  after — that  the  Massilian  Greeks  had 

*  VVTritten,  it  is  supposed,  by  Onomacritus,  a  cotemporary  of  Pisistratus. 
There  appears  to  be  no  good  reason  for  doubting  the  high  antiquity  of  this 
poem.  The  treatise,  in  defence  of  its  authenticity,  by  Ruhnkenius,  who 
shows  it  to  have  been  quoted  by  two  ancient  grammarians,  seems  to  have 
set  the  question  at  rest^  (Epist.Crit.  2.)  Archbishop  Usher,  in  referring  to 
the  mention  of  lerne  in  this  poem,  adds,  that  "  the  Romans  themselves 
could  not  produce  such  a  tribute  to  their  antiquity"  (Ecclesiar.  Antiq.  c.  16.): 
and  Camden,  to  secure  a  share  of  the  high  honour  for  his  country,  first  sup- 
poses that  a  nameless  island,  described  by  the  poet,  must  be  Britain ;  and 
then  changes  the  sole  epithet  by  which  it  is  described,  for  one  more  suited  to 
his  purpose  : — "  Quae  necessario  sit  hcec  nostra,  AcvKaiov  ^epaov,  id  est,  albi- 
cantem  terram  dixisse  quam  ante  pauculos  versus  Nrjaov  -KcvKrjccaav,  pro 
"XevKrieatrav,  vocasse  videatur."  Camden,  Britan. 

t  "  Nempe  edoctus  a  Phoenicibus,  Graecis  enim  tunc  temporis  hsec  loca 
erant  inaccessa. "—SocAart,  6eog.  Sac.  lib.  i.  c.  39.  The  epithet,  Cronian, 
applied  by  this  Orphic  poet  to  the  sea  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Hyperbo- 
reans, is,  according  to  Toland,  purely  Irish ;  the  word  Croin,  in  that  lan- 
guage, signifying  Frozen. 

This  circumstance  of  Ireland  having  been  known  to  the  Argonauts,  is 
thus  alluded  to  by  a  Dutch  writer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Adrian  Junius : — 
"  Ilia  ego  sum  Graiis  olim  glacialis  lerne 
Dicta,  et  Jasoni  puppis  bene  c(^nita  nau^." 

t  De  Mundo. 

§The  Athenians  had  already,  in  this  philosopher's  time,  as  he  himself 
mentions  (CEconomic.  1.  2.),  been  advised  to  secure  to  themselves  the  mo- 
nojjoly  of  the  Tyrian  market,  by  buying  up  all  the  lead. 


16  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

learned  to  explore  those  western  regions  themselves,  and  that, 
for  the  first  time,  in  any  writings  that  have  come  down  to  us, 
we  find  the  two  chief  British  islands  mentioned,  in  the  authentic 
treatise  just  referred  to,  under  their  old  Celtic  names  of  Albion 
and  lerne. 

It  is  from  a  source,  however,  comparatively  modern — the 
geographical  poem  of  Festus  Avienus — that  our  most  valuable 
ins^ht  into  the  fortunes  of  ancient  Ireland  is  derived.  In 
the  separate  expeditions  undertaken  by  Hanno  and  Himilco 
beyond  the  Straits,  while  the  former  sailed  in  a  southern  direc- 
tion, the  latter,  shaping  his  course  to  the  north,  along  the  shores 
of  Spain,  (the  old  track  of  Phoenician  voyagers  between  Gades 
and  Grallicia,)  stretched  from  thence  across  the  ocean  to  the 
CEstrumnides,  or  Tin  Isles.  Of  this  expedition,  a  record,  or 
journal,  such  as  Hanno  has  left  of  his  Periplus,  was  deposited 
by  Himilco  in  one  of  the  temples  of  Carthage,  and  still  existed 
in  the  fourth  century,  when  Avienus,  having  access,  as  he 
mentions,  to  the  Punic  records,  collected  from  thence  those 
curious  details  which  he  has  preserved  in  his  Iambics*,  and 
which  furnish  by  far  the  most  interesting  glimpse  derived  from 
antiquity  of  the  early  condition  of  Ireland.  The  CEstrumnides, 
or  Scilly  Islands,  are  described,  in  this  sketch,  as  two  days'  sail 
from  the  larger  Sacred  Island,  inhabited  by  the  Hiberni ;  and 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  latter,  the  island  of  the  Albiones, 
it  is  said,  extendsf.  Though  the  description  be  somewhat 
obscure,  yet  the  Celtic  names  of  the  two  great  Islands,  and  their 
relative  position,  as  well  to  the  CEstrumnides  as  to  each  other, 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  Britain  and  Ireland  being  the  two  places 

*  "  Haec  nos  ab  imis  Punicorum  annalibus 
Prolata  longo  tempore  edidimus  tibi." 

Fest.  Avienus,  de  Oris  Maritim. 
It  would  appear  from  this,  that  the  records  to  which  Avienus  had  access 
were  written  in  Punic,— a  circumstance  which,  if  true,  says  Dodwell,  would 
afford  a  probable  reason  for  the  name  of  Himilco 'having  been  so  long  un- 
known to  the  Greeks :— "  Ea  causa  satis  verisirailis  esse  potuit  cur  tamdiu 
GrsBcos  latuerit  Himilco,  etiam  eos  qui  collegae  meminerint  Hannonis."— Z)is- 
sert.  de  Peripli  Hannonis  mtate. 

t  "  Ast  hinc  duobus  in  Sacram,  sic  Insulam 

Dixere  prisci,  solibus  cursus  rati  est. 

Haec  inter  undas  multum  cespitem  jacit, 

Eamque  late  gens  Hibernorum  colit. 

Propinqua  rursus  insula  Albionum  patet. 

Tartesiisque  in  terminos  (Estrumnidum 

Negociandi  mos  erat,  Carthaginis 

Etiam  colonis,  et  vulgus  inter  Herculis 

Agitans  columnas  ha?c  adibant  aquora." 
One  of  the  reasons  assigned  by  Dodwell  for  rejecting  the  Periplus  of  Han- 
no, as  a  work  fabricated,  after  his  death,  by  some  Sicilian  Greek,  is  the  oc- 
currence  of  Greek  names  instead  of  Phoenician  for  the  different  places  men- 
tioned in  it.     This  objection,  however,  does  not  apply  '.o  the  account  of 


HIMILCO'S  ACCOUNT  OF  IRELAND.        .  17 

designated.  The  commerce  carried  on  by  the  people  of  Gades 
with  the  Tin  Isles  is  expressly  mentioned  by  the  writer,  who 
adds,  that  "  the  husbandmen,  or  planters,  of  Carthage,  as  well 
as  her  common  people,  went  to  those  isles," — thus  implying 
that  she  had  established  there  a  permanent  colony. 

In  this  short  but  circumstantial  sketch,  the  features  of  Ireland 
are  brought  into  view  far  more  prominently  than  those  of  Bri- 
tain.  After  a  description  of  the  hide-covered  boats,  or  currachs, 
in  which  the  inhabitants  of  those  islands  navigated  their  seas, 
the  populousness  of  the  isle  of  the  Hiberni,  and  the  turfy  nature 
of  its  soil,  are  commemorate^.  But  the  remarkable  fact  con- 
tained in  this  record — itself  of  such  antiquity — is,  that  Ireland 
was  then,  and  had  been  from  ancient  times,  designated  "  The 
Sacred  Island."  This  reference  of  the  date  of  her  early  re- 
nown, to  times  so  remote  as  to  be  in  Himilco's  days  ancient, 
carries  the  imagination,  it  must  be  owned,  far  back  into  the 
depths  of  the  past,  yet  hardly  further  than  the  steps  of  history 
will  be  found  to  accompany  its  flight.  Respecting  the  period 
of  the  expeditions  of  Hanno  and  Himilco,  the  opinions  of  the 
learned  have  differed  ;  and  by  some  their  date  is  referred  to  so 
distant  a  period  as  1000  years  before  the  Christian  era.*  Com- 
bining the  statement,  however,  of  Pliny,  that  they  took  place 
during  the  most  flourishing  epoch  of  Carthagef,  with  the  in- 
ternal evidence  furnished  by  Hanno's  own  Periplus,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  it  was,  at  least,  before  the  reign  of  Alexander  the 
Great  that  these  two  memorable  expeditions  occurred.  Those 
"  ancients,"  therefore,  from  wliom  the  fame  of  the  Sacred  Island 
had  been  handed  down,  could  have  been  no  other  than  the 
Phoenicians  of  Gades,  and  of  the  Gallician  coasts  of  Spain, 
who,  through  so  many  centuries,  had  reigned  alone  in  those 
secluded  seas,  and  were  the  dispensers  of  religion,  as  well  as 
of  commerce,  wherever  they  bent  their  course. | 

Himilco,  as  reported  by  Avienus,  in  which  the  old  names  Gadir,  Albion,  and 
Hibernia  declare  sufficiently  their  Phoenician  and  Celtic  original. 

Speaking  of  the  Argonautics  and  the  record  of  Himilco,  Bishop  Stilling- 
fleet  says,  "These  are  undoubted  testimonies  of  the  ancient  peopling  of  Ire- 
land, and  of  far  greater  authority  than  those  domestic  annals  now  so  much 
extolled. — Antiquities  of  the  British  Churches,  c.  5. 

*  Nous  croyons  done,  que  cette  expedition,  a  du  prec6der  Hesiode  de  trente 
on  quarante  ans,  et  qu'on  pent  la  fixer  vers  mille  ans  avant  I'ere  Chr6- 
iienwe.—Gossclin,  Recherches  sur  la  Oeographie  des  ^nciens. 

t  Et  Hanno,  Carthaginis  potentia  florente,  circumvectus  a  Gadibus  ad 
finem  Arabise,  navigationem  eam  prodidit  scripto :  sicut  ad  extera  Europe 
noscenda  missus  eodem  tempore  Himilco. — Plin.  J^at.  Hist.  lib.  ii.  c.  67. 

X  See,  for  a  learned  and  luminous  view  of  the  relations  of  ancient  Ireland 
with  the  East,  Lord  Rosse's  Vindication  of  the  Will  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Henry 
Flood. 

2* 


18  '  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

At  how  early  a  period  this  remarkable  people  began  to  spread 
themselves  over  the  globe,  the  inscription  legible,  for  many  an 
age,  on  the  two  Pillars,  near  the  Fount  of  the  Magi,  at  Tan- 
gie]-6, — "  We  fly  from  the  face  of  Joshua,  the  robber," — bore 
striking  testimony.*  Nothing,  indeed,  can  mark  more  vividly 
the  remote  date  of  even  the  maturity  of  their  empire,  than  the 
impressive  fact,  that  the  famed  temple  which  they  raised,  at 
Gades,  to  their  Hercules,  was,  in  the  time  of  the  Romans,  one 
of  the  most  memorable  remains  of  ancient  days.f  Not  to  go 
back,  however,  as  far  as  the  period,  little  less  than  1500  years 
before  our  era,  when  their  colonies  first  began  to  swarm  over 
the  waters,  we  need  but  take  their  most  prosperous  epoch,  which 
commenced  with  the  reign  of  Solomon,  and  supposing  their 
sails  to  have  then  first  reached  the  Atlantic,  the  date  of  the 
probable  colonization  of  that  region  must  still  be  fixed  high  in 
time.  In  the  days  of  Herodotus,  by  whom  first  vaguely,  and 
without  any  certain  knowledge  of  a  sea  beyond  the  Straits,  the 
importation  of  tin  from  the  Cassiterides  is  mentioned,  it  is  hard- 
ly too  much  to  assume  that  the  Phoenicians  had,  for  some  time, 
formed  a  settlement  in  these  islands.'  That  they  must  have  had 
a  factory  here  is  pretty  generally  conceded:  J  but  a  people,  whose 
system  it  was  to  make  colonization  the  beisis  of  their  power, 
were  assuredly  not  likely  to  have  left  a  position  of  such  im- 
mense commercial  importance  unoccupied ;  and  the  policy,  first 
taught  by  them  to  trading  nations,  of  extending  the  circle  of 
their  customers  by  means  of  colonies,  was  shown  in  the  barter, 
which  they  thenceforward  maintained  with  the  British  Isles — 
exchanging  their  own  earthen  vessels,  salt,  and  brass,  for  the 
tin,  lead,  and  skins  produced  in  these  islands. § 

There  are  grounds  for  believing,  also,  that  to  the  Phoenicians, 
and  consequently  to  the  Greeks,  Ireland  was  known,  if  not 

*  Procop.  Vandal,  lib.  2.  c.  10.— Even  this  is  by  Bishop  "Cumberland  consi- 
dered too  stinted  a  range  of  time  for  their  colonizations.  "  They  seem  to  me," 
he  says, "  to  have  had  much  more  time  to  make  their  plantations  than  that 
learned  man  (Bochart)  thought  of;  for,  as  I  understand  their  history,  they 
had  time  from  about  Abraham's  death,  which  was  about  370  3'ears  before 
Joshua  invaded  Canaan,  from  wJiich  Bochart  begins." — J^otcs  on  the  Syn- 
chronism of  Canaan  and  Egypt. 

t  Diodor.  Sicul.  lib.  iv. 

X  "  During  this  commerce,  it  can  scarce  be  doubted  that  there  might  be 
established,  on  the  different  coasts,  factories  for  the  greater  convenience  of 
trading  with  the  natives  for  skins,  furs,  tin,  and  such  other  commodities  as 
the  respective  countries  then  produced." — Beauford,  Druidism  Revived,  Col- 
lect. Hih.   No.  VII. 

$  MeraXXo  ht  £)(^ovT£g  KaTTirepov  Kai  fioXvSSov^  Kcpafiov  avri  tovtu)v  kui 
Tdiv  6epnaTU)v  SiaWaTTovrai^  Kai  aXaj,  Kai  ■^aXKUfxara  Trpoy  tovs  sixiropovs. — 
Strab.  Oeograph.  lib.  iii. 


Ptolemy's  geography.  19 

earlier,  at  least  more  intimately,  than  Britain.*  We  have  seen 
that,  in  the  ancient  Poem  called  the  "  Argonautics,"  supposed  to 
have  been  written  in  the  time  of  the  Pisistratidae,  and  by  a  poet 
instructed,  it  is  thought,  from  PhcEnician  sources,  lerne  alone 
is  mentioned,  without  any  allusion  whatever  to  Britain ;  and  in 
the  record  preserved  of  Himilco's  voyage  to  these  seas,  while 
the  characteristic  features  of  the  Sacred  Isle  are  dwelt  upon 
with  some  minuteness,  a  single  line  alone  is  allotted  to  the 
mere  geographical  statement  that  in  her  neighbourhood  the 
Island  of  the  Albiones  extends. 

Another  proof  of  the  earlier  intimacy  which  the  Phoenician 
Spaniards  maintained  v/ith  Ireland,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Geo- 
graphy of  Ptolemy,  who  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  and  derived  chiefly,  it  is  known,  from  Phoenician  au- 
thorities, his  information  respecting  these  islands.  For  while, 
in  describing  the  places  of  Britain,  more  especially  of  its  nor- 
thern portion,  this  geographer  has  fallen  into  the  grossest  er- 
rors,— placing  the  Mull  of  Galloway  to  the  north,  and  Cape 
Orcas  or  Dunsby  Head  to  the  east,f — in  his  account  of  Ireland, 
on  the  contrary,  situated  as  she  then  was  beyond  the  bounds 
of  the  Roman  empire,  and  hardly  known  within  that  circle  to 
exist,  he  has  shown  considerable  accuracy,  not  only  with  re- 
spect to  the  shores  and  promontories  of  the  island,  but  in  most 
of  his  details  of  the  interior  of  the  country,  its  various  cities 
and  tribes,  lakes,  rivers,  and  boundaries.  It  is  worthy  of  re- 
mark, too,  that  while  of  the  towns  and  places  of  Britain  he  haa 
in  general  given  but  the  new  Roman  names,  those  of  Ireland 
still  bear  on  his  map  their  old  Celtic  titles]:;  the  city  Hybernis 
still  tells  a  tale  of  far  distant  times,  and  the  Sacred  Promonto- 
ry, now  known  by  the  name  of  Carnsore  Point,  transports  our 

*  It  may  appear  inconsistent  with  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  priority  of  repu- 
tation, that  the  whole  of  the  Cassiterides  were,  in  those  days,  called  the  Bri- 
tannic Isles,— a  circumstance  which,  taken  as  implying  that  the  others  had 
derived  their  title  from  Britain,  and  had  so  far  merged  their  reputation  in 
hers,  would  doubtless  indicate  so  far  a  pre-eminence  on  her  part.  The  nam.-; 
Britannia,  however,  which,  in  Celtic,  means  a  land  of  metals,  was  applied 
generically  to  the  whole  cluster  of  the  Tin  Isles, — the  Isle  of  Man  and  those 
of  Scilly  included, — and  being,  therefore,  a  title  common  to  all,  could  not 
imply,  in  itself,  any  superiority  of  one  over  another.  Whether  tin  has  been 
ever  found  in  Ireland  is  doubtful;  but  lead  mines,  which  were,  at  least, 
equally  a  source  of  lucre  to  the  Phoenicians,  have  been,  not  long  since,  dis- 
covered and  worked. 

t "  By  an  error  in  the  geographical  or  astronomical  observations  preserved 
by  Ptolemy,  the  latitudes  north  of  this  point  (the  Novantum  Cheraonesus, 
or  Rens  of  Galloway)  appear  to  have  been  mistaken  for  the  longitudes,  and 
consequently  this  part  of  Britain  is  thrown  to  the  east."— JVoics  on  Richard 
of  Cirencester. 

X  "  Ireland  plainly  preserves,  in  her  topography,  a  much  greater  proportion 
of  Celtic  names  than  the  map  of  any  other  country."— CAa/mcrs's  Caledonia, 
vol.  i.  book  1.  chap.  1. 


20  HISTORY    OF   IRELxlND. 

imagination  back  to  the  old  Phoenician  days.*  When  it  is  consi- 
dered that  Ptolemy,  or  rather  Marinus  of  Tyre,  the  writer  whose 
steps  he  implicitly  followed,  is  believed  to  have  founded  his  ge- 
ographical descriptions  and  maps  on  an  ancient  Tyrian  Atlas,t 
this  want  of  aboriginal  names  for  the  cities  and  places  of  Bri- 
tain, and  their  predominance  in  the  map  of  Ireland,  prove  how 
much  more  anciently  and  intimately  the  latter  island  must  have 
been  known  to  the  geographers  of  Tyre  than  the  former. 

But  even  this  proof  of  her  earlier  intercourse  with  that  peo- 
ple and  their  colonies,  and  her  proportionate  advance  in  the  ca- 
reer of  civilization,  is  hardly  more  strong  than  the  remarkable 
testimony,  to  the  same  effect,  of  Tacitus,  by  whom  it  is  de- 
clared that,  at  the  time  when  he  wrote,  "  the  waters  and  har- 
bours of  Ireland  were  better  known,  through  the  resort  of  com- 
merce and  navigators,  than  those  of  Britain."!  From  this  it 
appears  tliat,  though  scarce  heard  of,  till  within  a  short  period, 
by  the  Romans,  and  almost  as  strange  to  the  Greeks,  this  se- 
quester-ed  island  was  yet  in  possession  of  channels  of  inter- 
course distinct  from  either;  and  that  while  the  Britons,  shut 
out  from  the  Continent  by  their  Roman  masters,  saw  them- 
selves deprived  of  all  that  profitable  intercourse  which  they 
had  long  maintained  with  the  Veneti,  and  other  people  of  Gaul, 
Ireland  still  continued  to  cultivate  her  old  relations  with  Spain, 
and  saw  her  barks  venturing  on  their  accustomed  course,  be- 

*  "  In  the  remote  ages  of  Phcenician  commerce,  all  the  western  and  south- 
western promontories  of  Europe  were  consecrated  by  the  erection  of  pillars 
or  temples,  and  by  religious  names  of  Celtic  and  primasval  antiquity  :  this  is 
expressly  stated  by  Strabo.  These  sacred  headlands  multiplied  in  proportion 
as  new  discoveries  were  made  along  the  coasts."— LeMers  of  Columbanus,  bij 
O'Connor,  Letter  Third.  The  learned  writer  adds  in  a  note  :— "  Tlie  Sacrum 
Promontorium,  or  south-western  headland  of  Iberia  Antiqua,  was  Cape  St. 
Vincent.  That  of  Ireland  was  Carne-soir  point,  as  stated  by  Ptolemy." 
This  headland  of  Carnsore  would  be  the  first  to  meet  the  eyes  of  the  Plioe- 
nician  navigators  in  their  way  from  Cornwall  to  Ireland. 

t  It  has  been  shown  by  Bremer  {De  Fontibus  Ocographorum  Ptolemcci,  d^c.,) 
a  writer  quoted  by  Heeren,  "  that  Ptolemy's  work  itself,  as  well  as  the  ac- 
companying charts,  usually  attributed  to  a  certain  Agathodaemon,  who  lived 
at  Alexandria  in  the  fifth  century,  were,  in  reality,  derived  from  Plicenician 
or  Tyrian  sources;— in  other  words,  that  Ptolemy,  or,  more  properly  speak- 
ing, Mariims  of  Tyi'C,  who  lived  but  a  short  time  before  him,  and  whose 
work  he  only  corrected,  must  h.ive  founded  his  geographical  descriptions  and 
maps  on  an  ancient  Tyrian  Atlas."— See  Hccren's  Historical  Researches,  vol. 
iii.  Append.  C. 

t "  Melius  aditus  portusque,  per  commcrcia  ct  negociatores,  cogniti."— 
Tacit.  Agricol.  c.  24.  An  attempt  has  been  made,  by  some  of  tiie  comment- 
ators, to  deprive  Ireland  of  most  of  the  advantages  of  this  testimony,  by  the 
suggestion  of  a  new  and  barbarous  reading,  which  transfers  the  word  "  me- 
lius" to  the  preceding  sentence,  and  is  not  less  unjust  to  the  elegant  Latinity 
of  the  historian,  than  to  the  ancient  claims  of  the  country  of  which  he 
treats.  It  is,  however,  gratifying  to  observe  that,  in  spite  of  this  effort,  the 
old  reading  in  general  maintains  its  ground;  though,  with  a  feeling  but  too 
characteristic  of  a  certain  class  of  Irishmen.  Arthur  Murphy  has,  in  his 
translation,  adopted  the  new  one. 


INTERCOURSE  OF  IRELAND  WITH  SPAIN.  'H 

tween  the  Celtic  Cape  and  the  Sacred  Promontory,  as  they  had 
done  for  centuries  before. 

Combining  these  proofs  of  an  early  intercourse  between  Ire- 
land and  the  Phoenician  Spaniards,  with  the  title  of  Sacred 
bestowed  on  this  Island  in  far  distant  times,  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted,  that  her  pre-eminence  in  religion  was  the  chief  source 
of  this  distinction ;  and  that  she  was,  in  all  probability,  the 
chosen  depository  of  the  Phoenician  worship  in  these  seas.  By 
the  epithet  Sacred,  applied  to  a  people  among  the  ancients,  it 
was  always  understood  that  there  belonged  to  them  some  re- 
ligious or  sacerdotal  character.  In  this  sense  it  was,  that  the 
Argippasi,  mentioned  by  Herodotus*,  were  called  a  Holy  Peo- 
ple ;  and  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  such  a  designation  was  doubt- 
less of  the  same  venerable  kind.  It  has  been  conjectured,  not 
without  strong  grounds  of  probability,  that  it  was  a  part  of  the 
policy  of  the  Phoenician  priesthood  to  send  out  missions  to 
their  distant  colonies,  on  much  the  same  plan  as  that  of  the 
Jesuits  at  Paraguay,  for  the  purpose  of  extending  their  spiritual 
power  over  those  regions  of  wliich  their  merchants  had  pos- 
sessed themselves  f ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  unlikely  that  the 
title  of  Sacred,  bestowed  thus  early  upon  Ireland,  may  have 
arisen  from  her  having  been  chosen  as  the  chief  seat  of  such 
a  mission. 

The  fact,  that  there  existed  an  island  devoted  to  religious 
rites  in  these  regions,  has  been  intimated  by  almost  all  the 
Greek  writers  who  have  treated  of  them ;  and  the  position,  in 
every  instance,  assigned  to  it,  answers  perfectly  to  that  of  Ire- 
land. By  Plutarch  |  it  is  stated,  that  an  envoy  dispatched  by 
the  emperor  Claudius  to  explore  the  British  Isles,  found  on  an 
island,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Britain,  an  order  of  Magi  ac- 
counted holy  by  the  people :  and,  in  another  work  of  the  same 
writer^,  some  fabulous  wonders  are  related  of  an  island  lying 

*  Lib.  ii. 

t "  I  believe  it  will  be  found  that  many  of  their  regular  priests,  the  Magi, 
or  Gours,  did  (as  the  regulars  of  modern  times  and  religions  have  done)  settle 
missions  amongst  the  nations  in  those  most  distant  parts."— fTtsc's  Enqui- 
ries concerning  the  First  Inhabitants,  Language,  ^c.  of  Europe.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton,  too,  as  quoted  by  Pownall,  says,  "  With  these  Phojnicians  came  a 
sort  of  men  skilled  in  religious  mysteries." 

X  In  Numa. 

Ji  De  Fac.  in  Orb.  Lunre.  "  Marcellus,  who  wrote  a  history  of  Ethiopian 
airs,  says,  that  such  and  so  great  an  island  (the  Atalantis)  once  existed, 
is  evinced  by  those  who  composed  histories  of  things  relative  to  the  external 
sea.  For  they  relate  that,  in  those  times,  there  were  seven  islands  in  the 
Atlantic  Sea  sacred  to  Proserpine."— Proc^ws  on  the  Timceus,  quoted  in 
Clarke's  Maritime  Discoveries. 

See,  for  the  traditions  in  India  respecting  the  White  Island  of  the  Wc«t, 
Asiatic  Transactions,  vol.  ii.  "  Hiran'ya  and  Su-varn'eya  (says  Major  Wil- 
ford)  are  obviously  the  same  with  Erin  and  Juvcrnia,  or  Ireland.    Another 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND, 
o 

to  the  west  of  Britain,  the  inhabitants  of  which  were  a  holy- 
race  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  a  connexion  between  them  and 
Carthage  is  indistinctly  intimated.  Diodorus  Siculus  also  gives 
an  account,  on  the  authority  of  some  ancient  writers,  of  an 
island  "^  situated,  as  he  says,  "  over  against  Gaul ;"  and  which, 
from  its  position  and  size,  the  rites  of  sun-worship  practised  by- 
its  people,  their  Round  Temple,  their  study  of  the  heavens, 
and  the  skill  of  their  musicians  on  the  harp,  might  sufficiently 
warrant  the  assumption  that  Ireland  was  the  island  so  charac- 
terized, did  not  the  too  fanciful  colouring  of  the  whole  descrip- 
tion rather  disqualify  it  for  the  purposes  of  sober  testimony, 
and  incline  us  to  rank  this  Hyperborean  island  of  the  historian 
along  with  his  Isle  of  Panchsea  and  other  such  fabulous  marvels. 
At  the  same  time,  nothing  is  more  probable,  than  that  the  vague, 
glimmering  knowledge  which  the  Greeks  caught  up  occasion- 
ally from  Phoenician  merchants,  respecting  the  sun-worship 
and  science  of  the  Sacred  Island,  lerne,  should  have  furnished 
the  writers  referred  to  by  Diodorus  with  tlie  ground-work  of 
this  fanciful  tale.  The  size  attributed  to  the  island,  which  is 
described  as  "  not  less  than  Sicily,"  is,  among  the  many  coin- 
cidences with  Ireland,  not  the  least  striking ;  and,  with  respect 
to  its  position  and  name,  we  jfind,  that  so  late  as  the  time  of  the 
poet  Claudian,  the  Scoti  or  Irish  were  represented  as  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  Hyperborean  seas.f 

But  the  fragment  of  antiquity  the  most  valuable  for  the  light 
it  throws  upon  this  point,  is  that  extracted  from  an  ancient 
geographer,  by  Strabo,  in  which  we  are  told  of  an  island  near 
Britain,  where  sacrifices  were  offered  to  Ceres  and  Proserpine, 
in  the  same  manner  as  at  Samothrace.|  From  time  immemorial, 
the  small  isle  of  Samothrace,  in  the  iCgean,  was  a  favourite 
seat  of  idolatrous  worship  and  resort;  and  on  its  shores  the 
Cabiric  Mysteries  had  been  established  by  the  Phcenicians. 
These  rites  were  dedicated  to  the  deities  who  presided  over 

name  for  it  is  Surya-Dwipa,  or  the  Island  of  the  Sun,  and  it  is  probably  the 
old  Garden  of  Phoebus  of  the  western  niythologists."— £ssay  en  the  Sacred 
Isles  in  the  West. 

*  This  island  has  been  claimed  on  the  part  of  several  countries.  The  editor 
of  Diodorus,  in  a  sliort  note  on  his  Index,  suggests  that  it  may  have  been 
meant  for  Britain  :— "  Vide  num  de  Anglia  intelligi  queat."  Rowland  in- 
sists it  can  be  no  other  than  his  own  Isle  of  Anglesea  ;  while  Toland  fixes 
its  site  in  the  Western  Isles  of  Scotland ;  and  the  great  Swedish  scholar, 
lludbeck,  places  it  boldly  in  the  peninsula  of  Scandinavia. 
t  Scotumquc  vago  mucrone  secutus 
Fregit  Hyperboreas  remis  audacibus  undas. 

De  III.  Cons.  Honor,  v.  55. 
Marcianus  Ueracleota,  too,  describes  Ilibernia  as  bounded  on  the  north  by 
Ihe  Hyperborean  Sea. 

I  <l'<j(Tiv  eivai  vtjGov  Tzpos  rtj  BpcTraviKt],  kuB^  tjv  bfioia  tois  cv  Sa/zo^pa/eij 
?r£p(  Tijv  Ar}iit]rpav  Kai  rrjv  Koprjv  upoTroaiTai,  lib.  iv. 


ANCIENT    DESCRIPTIONS    OP    IRELAND.  23 

navigation*;  and  it  was  usual  for  mariners  to  stop  at  this 
island  on  their  way  to  distant  seas,  and  offer  up  a  prayer  at  its 
shrines  for  propitious  winds  and  skies.  From  the  words  of  the 
geographer  quoted  by  Strabo,  combined  with  all  the  other  evi- 
dence adduced,  it  may  be  inferred  that  Ireland  had  become 
the  Samothrace,  as  it  were,  of  the  western  seas ;  that  thither 
the  ancient  Cabiric  gods  had  been  wafted  by  the  early  colo- 
nizers of  that  region  f ;  and  that,  as  the  mariner  used  on  his 
departure  from  the  Mediterranean  to  breathe  a  prayer  in  the 
Sacred  Island  of  the  East,  so,  in  the  seas  beyond  the  Pillars, 
he  found  another  Sacred  Island,  where  to  the  same  tutelary 
deities  of  the  deep  his  vows  and  thanks  were  offered  on  his 
safe  arrival. 

In  addition  to  all  this  confluence  of  evidence  from  high 
authentic  sources,  we  have  likewise  the  traditions  of  Ireland 
herself, — pointing  invariably  in  the  same  eastern  direction, — 
her  monuments,  the  names  of  her  promontories  and  hills,  her 
old  usages  and  rites,  all  bearing  indelibly  the  same  oriental 
stamp.  In  speaking  of  traditions,  I  mean  not  the  fables  which 
may  in  later  times  have  been  grafted  upon  them ;  but  those 
old,  popular  remembrances,  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  which, 
in  all  countries,  furnish  a  track  for  the  first  footsteps  of  history, 
when  cleared  of  those  idle  weeds  of  fiction  by  which  in  time 
they  become  overgrown. 

According  to  Strabo,  it  was  chiefly  from  Gades  that  the 
Phoenicians  fitted  out  their  expeditions  to  the  British  Isles ; 
but  the  traditions'  of  the  Irish  look  to  Gallicia  as  the  quarter 
from  whence  their  colonies  sailed,  and  vestiges  of  intercourse 
between  that  part  of  Spain  and  Ireland  may  be  traced  far  into 
past  times.  The  traditionary  history  of  the  latter  country  gives 
an  account  of  an  ancient  Pharos,  or  light-house,  erected  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  port  now  called  Corunna,  for  the  use  of 
navigators  on  their  passage  between  that  coast  and  Ireland  f ; 

*  "  L'ile  de  Samothrace  acquit  une  grande  c616brit6  chez  toutos  les  nations 
maritimes,  par  la  reputation  qu'elle  avoit  d'etre  consacr^es  sp6cialement  aux 
Divinit6s  tutelaires  des  iiavigateurs.  On  alloit  y  prier  les  Dieux  d'accorder 
des  vents  favorables,  et  solliciter  des  apparitions  ou  Epiphanies  des  Dios- 
cures." — Dupuis,  Orig.  de  tous  les  Cultes,  torn  iv.  premiere  partie.  See,  for 
the  appearance  of  these  twin  stars,  or  fires,  to  Orpheus  and  his  Argonautic 
companions  at  Samothrace,  Diodorus,  lib.  4.  In  some  of  the  old  Irish  tradi- 
tions, those  African  sea-rovers,  called  Fomorians,  who  are  said  to  have 
visited  these  shores  in  ancient  times,  are  represented  as  worshipping  cer- 
tain stars,  which  had  "derived  a  power  from  the  God  of  the  Sea."— See 
Keating,  p.  87. 

t "  That  the  Atlantian,  or  Cabiric,  superstition  prevailed  in  Ireland,  there 
cannot  be  a  doubt."— iier.  6.  L.  Faber,  On  the  Cabiric  Mysteries,  vol.  ii. 

I  There  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  this  tradition  and  an  account 
given  by  yEthicus,  the  cosmographer,  of  a  lofty  Pharos,  or  light-house,  stand- 
ing formerly  on  the  sea-coast  of  Gallicia,  and  serving  as  a  beacon  in  the 


24  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

and  the  names  of  the  tribes  marked  by  Ptolemy,  as  inhabiting 
those  parts  of  the  Irish  coast  facing  Gallicia,  prove  that  there 
was  a  large  infusion  of  Spanish  population  from  that  quarter. 

So  irresistible,  indeed,  is  the  force  of  tradition,  in  tavour  of 
a  Spanish  colonization,  that  every  new  propounder  of  an  hypo- 
thesis on  the  subject  is  forced  to  admit  this  event  as  part  of  his 
scheme.  Thus,  Buchanan,  in  supposing  colonies  to  have  passed 
from  Gaul  to  Ireland,  contrives  to  carry  them  first  to  the  west  of 
Spain*;  and  the  learned  Welsh  antiquary,  Lhuyd,  who  traces  the 
origin  of  the  Irish  to  two  distinct  sources,  admits  one  of  those 
primitive  sources  to  have  been  Spanish.f  In  the  same  manner,  a 
late  writer,|  who,  on  account  of  the  remarkable  similarity  which 
exists  between  his  country's  Round  Towers  and  the  Pillar-tem- 
ples of  Mazanderan,  deduces  the  origin  of  the  Irish  nation  from 
the  banks  of  the  Caspian,  yields  so  far  to  the  current  of  an- 
cient tradition,  as,  in  conducting  his  colony  from  Iran  to  the 
West,  to  give  it  Spain  for  a  resting-place.  Even  Innes,§  one 
of  the  most  acute  of  those  writers  who  have  combated  the 

direction  of  Britain  :— "  Secundus  angulus  intendit,  ubi  Brigantia  Civitas 
sita  est  Galliciae,  et  altissimum  Pharum,  et  inter  pauca  memorandi  operis  ad 
speculam  Britannite."  Whether  the  translation  I  have  given  of  the  last 
three  words  of  this  passage  convey  their  real  meaning,  I  know  not ;  but 
they  have  been  hitherto  pronounced  unintelligible.  The  passage  is  thus  no- 
ticed by  Casaubon,  in  a  note  on  Strabo,  lib.  3. :— "  ^Ethicus  in  Hispaniae  de- 
scriptione  altissinii  cujusdain  Fari  meminit." 

*The  opinion  of  Buchanan  on  the  point  will  be  found  worthy  of  atten- 
tion. "  It  is,"  he  says,  "  an  unvarying  tradition,  and  with  many  marks  of 
truth  to  confirm  it,  that  a  multitude  of  Spaniards,  whether  driven  from  their 
homes  by  the  more  powerful  among  their  fellow-countrymen,  or,  on  account 
of  the  increase  of  population,  emigrating  of  themselves,  did  pass  over  into 
Ireland,  and  take  possession  of  the  places  neighbouring  to  that  island."  He 
adds  further :  "  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Spaniards,  leaving  Ireland  at 
their  backs, —  a  country  nearer  to  them,  and  of  a  milder  temperature, — 
should  have  landed  first  in  Albyn ;  but  rather  that,  first  making  their  de- 
scent on  Hibernia,  they  should  afterwards  have  sent  colonies  to  Britain." — 
Lib.  ii.  c.  17. 

t  Preface  to  his  Glossography.— In  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Rowland, 
Lhuyd  says,  in  speaking  of  the  Irish,  "  For,  notwithstanding  their  histories 
(as  those  of  the  origin  of  other  nations)  be  involved  in  fabulous  accounts, 
yet  that  there  came  a  Spanish  colony  into  Ireland  is  very  manifest."  O'Bri- 
en, also,  in  the  Preface  to  his  Dictionary,  follows  the  same  views: — "  The 
fact  of  the  old  Spanish  language  having  been  brought  very  anciently  into 
Ireland  is  not  the  less  certain,  and  that  by  a  colony  of  the  old  Spaniards, 
who  co-inhabited  with  the  Gadelians." 

J  Popular  History  of  Ireland,  by  Mr.  Whitty,  part  i. 

§  "  Since  the  Irish  tradition  will  absolutely  have  the  inhabitants  of  that 
country  come  from  Spain." — Critical  Essay,  vol.  ii.  dissert,  i.  chap.  3.  A  no 
less  determined  opponent  of  the  Milesian  history,  though  far  inferior  to  Innes 
in  learning  and  sagacity,  concedes,  also,  on  this  point  to  traditional  authori- 
ty. "  At  the  same  time,  still  further  be  it  from  me  to  deny  my  assent  to  the 
tradition  that  a  people,  coming  last  from  Spain,  did  settle  here  at  a  very 
early  period."— CampbelPs  Strictures  on  the  Ecclesiastical  and  Literary  Hi^story 
of  Ireland,  sect.  4. 


IDOLATRY    OF    THE    ANCIENT    INHABITANTS.  25 

Milesian  pretensions  of  the  Irish,  yet  bows  to  the  universal 
voice  of  tradition  in  that  country,  which,  as  he  says,  perempto- 
rily declares  in  favour  of  a  colonization  from  Spain. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ANTiaUITY   OF  THE   IRISH   PEOPLE. 


In  those  parts  of  the  Spanish  coasts  with  which  the  Irish 
were  early  conversant,  the  Phcenicians  became  intermixed  with 
the  original  race,  or  Celts ;  and  it  would  appear,  from  the  mix- 
ed character  of  her  ancient  religion,  that  Ireland  was  also  peo- 
pled from  the  same  compound  source. 

The  religion  the  Celts  brought  with  them  to  this  island, 
was  the  same,  we  may  take  for  granted,  with  that  which  their 
kindred  tribes  introduced  into  Spain,  Britain,  and  Gaul.  That 
coiTUption  of  the  primitive  modes  of  adoration  into  which  the 
Canaanites  early  lapsed,  by  converting  into  idols  the  rude 
stones  and  pillars  set  up  by  their  fathers  but  as  sacred  memo- 
rials, and  transferring  to  inanimate  symbols  of  the  Deity  the 
veneration  due  only  to  himself — this  most  ancient  superstition 
of  which  the  annals  of  human  faith  bear  record,  is  still  trace- 
able in  the  old  traditions  and  monuments  of  Ireland.  The  sa- 
cred grove  and  well — the  circle  of  erect  stones  surrounding 
either  the  altar  or  the  judgment-seat — the  unhewn  pillars,  ador- 
ed, as  symbols  of  the  Sun,  by  the  Phcenicians — the  sacred 
heaps,  or  Carnes,  dedicated  to  the  same  primitive  worship — the 
tomb-altars,  called  Cromlech,  supposed  to  have  been  places  as 
well  of  sepulture  as  of  sacrifice — and,  lastly,  those  horrible 
rites  in  which  children  were  the  "  burnt  offerings,"  which  the 
Jewish  idolaters  perpetrated  in  a  place  called  from  thence  the 
Valley  of  Shrieking*,  while,  in  Ireland,  the  scene  of  these 
frightful  immolations  bore  the  name  of  Magh-Sleacth,  or  the 
Place  of  Slaughter!, — of  all  these  known  and  acknowledged 
features  of  the  ancient  Celtic  worship,  of  that  superstition 

*  Jeremiah,  vii.  31,  32.  This  valley  was  also  named  Tophet,  from  the  prac- 
tice of  beating  the  drums,  during  the  ceremony,  to  drown  the  cries  of  the 
children  sacrificed  in  the  fire  to  Moloch. 

t  "  Magh-Sleacth,  so  called  from  an  idol  of  the  Irish,  named  Crom-Cruach 
—a  stone  capped  with  gold,  about  which  stood  twelve  other  rough  stones. 
Every  people  that  conquered  Ireland  (that  is,  every  colony  established  in 
Ireland)  worshippcfd  this  deity,  till  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick.  They  sacri- 
ficed the  first-born  of  every  species  to  this  deity  ;  and  Tighernmas  Mac  Fol- 
laigh,  king  of  Ireland,  commanded  sacrifices  to  this  deity  on  the  day  of 
Saman,  and  that  both  men  and  women  should  worship  him  prostrated  on 
the  ground,  till  they  drew  blood  from  their  noses,  foreheads,  eaj"s,  and  elbows. 
Many  died  with  the  severity  of  this  worship,  and  hence  it  was  called  Magh- 
Sleacth."— Fb^  MSS.  quoted  in  the  CoUectan.  de  Reb.  Hibern.  No.  XII. 

Vol.  I:  3 


26  HISTORY    or    IRELAND. 

wliich  spread  wherever  the  first  races  of  men  dispersed  them- 
selves, there  remain,  to  this  day,  undoubted  traces  and  testimo- 
nies, not  only  in  the  traditions  and  records  of  Ireland,  but  in 
those  speaking  monuments  of  antiquity  which  are  still  scatter- 
ed over  her  hills  and  plains. 

Combined  with  this  old  and  primitive  system  of  idolatry  are 
to  be  found,  also,  a  number  of  rites  and  usages  belonging  evi- 
dently to  much  later  and  less  simple  modes  of  worship.  There 
may  be  traced,  indeed,  in  the  religious  remains  of  the  Irish, 
the  marks  of  three  distinct  stages  of  superstition ;  namely, 
that  first  rude  ritual  which  their  Celtic  progenitors  brought 
with  them  from  the  East ;  next,  the  introduction  of  images 
somewhat  approaching  the  human  shape ;  and,  thirdly,  those 
monuments  of  a  more  refined  system  of  fire-worship  which 
still  embellish  this  country.  While  some  of  their  rites  and 
names  of  deities  are  traceable  directly  to  the  Phoenicians, 
there  are  other  religious  customs  which  seem  to  have  been  de- 
rived, through  the  means  of  this  people,  from  Persia.*  It  was 
on  the  whole  the  description  of  religion  likely  to  spring  up  in 
a  country  into  which  a  variety  of  modes  of  devotion  and  doc- 
trine had  been  imported ;  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  Phoe- 
nicians, with  that  utter  indifference  to  diversity  of  worship 
which  forms  one  of  the  most  striking  differences  between  the 
Pagan  and  the  Christian  religionist,  set  no  limit  to  the  varie- 
ties of  creed  and  ritual,  with  which,  in  their  career  over  the 
globe,  they  furnished  their  colonies.  Being  in  constant  com- 
munication with  Persia,  for  the  sake  of  the  Eastern  trade,  it 
was  even  a  part  of  the  commercial  policy  of  this  people  to  en- 
courage an  intercourse,  on  religious  subjects,  between  their 
Eastern  and  Western  customers,  of  which  they  tliemselves 
should  be  made  the  channel,  and  so  convert  it  to  their  own  ad- 
vantage in  the  way  of  trade. 

The  mixed  nature,  indeed,  of  the  creed  of  the  ancient  Irish 
seems  to  be  intimated  in  their  mode  of  designating  their  own 
priesthood,  to  whom  they  applied  as  well  the  Persian  as  tlie 
Celtic  denominations ;  calling  them  indifferently  either  Magi, 
or  Druids,  Thus,  those  Magi  described,  in  the  Lives  of  St. 
Patrick,  as  warning  the  king  against  the  consequences  of  the 
new  faith,  are,  in  the  ancient  Hymn  of  Fiech,  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, denominated  Druids. 

Tlie  great  object  of  Phoenician  adoration,  the  Sun,  was,  un- 
der the  same  name  of  Baal,  or  Bel,  the  chief  deity  of  the  Irish. 
Even  the  very  title  of  Beel-Samen,  or  Lord  of  Heaven,  by 

*  See  Borlase,  book  ii.  ch.23.    "  On  the  Resemblance  betwixt  the  Druida 
and  the  Persians." 


EVIDENCES    OF    SUN-WORSHIP.  27 

which  the  Phoenicians,  with  outstretched  hands,  invoked  their 
God*,  was  preserved  in  the  Pagan  worship  of  Ireland  f ;  and 
the  Festival  of  Samhin,  or  Heaven,  the  great  Cabiric  divinity, 
(honoured,  under  the  same  name  at  Samothrace,)  marked  one 
of  the  four  divisions  of  the  Irish  year.  That  the  worship  of 
the  Sun  formed  a  part  of  the  Pagan  system  which  St.  Patrick 
found  established  on  his  arrival,  appears  from  the  following 
passage  of  his  Confession: — "That  Sun  whom  we  behold, 
rises  daily,  at  the  command  of  God,  for  our  use.  Yet  will  he 
never  reign,  nor  shall  his  splendour  endure ;  and  all  those  who 
adore  him  will  descend  wretchedly  into  punishment.  But  we 
believe  and  adore  the  true  Sun,  Christ.]:"  Even  to  our  own  days 
the  names  of  places, — those  significant  memorials,  by  which 
a  whole  history  is  sometimes  conveyed  in  a  single  word, — 
retahi  vestiges  of  the  ancient  superstition  of  the  land ;  and  such 
names  as  Knoc-greine  and  Tuam  Greine,  "  Hills  of  the  Sun," 
still  point  out  the  high  places  and  cairns  where,  ages  since,  the 
solar  rites  were  solemnized.  It  will  be  found,  in  general,  that 
names  formed  from  the  word  Grian,  which,  still  in  the  Irish, 
as  in  the  old  Celtic  language,  signifies  the  Sun,  and  from  which, 
evidently,  the  epithet  Grynaeus,  applied  to  Apollo,  was  derived, 
marked  such  places  as  were  once  devoted  to  the  solar  wor- 
ship. §  Thus  Cairne-Grainey,  or  the  Sun's  Heap,  Granny's 
Bed,  corrupted  from  Grian  Beacht,  the  Sun's  Circle,  &c.  From 
the  same  associations,  a  point  of  land,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Wexford,  is  called  Grenor,  or  the  Place  of  the  Sun's  Fire ; 
and  the  ancient  town  of  Granard,  where  there  existed,  in  the 
fifth  century,  a  sacred  well  of  the  Druids,  and  where  also  St. 
Patrick  is  said  to  have  overturned  an  altar  of  the  Sun,  and 
erected  a  church  in  its  place,  was  so  named  from  being  a  site 
of  the  ancient  Irish  worship.  On  like  grounds,  the  appella- 
tion of  Grange  is  supposed  to  have  been  given  to  that  curious 
cavern  near  Drogheda,  which,  from  the  manner  of  its  construc- 
tion, as  well  as  from  the  pyramidal  obelisk||  found  in  its  re- 


eipas  opeyeiv  eis  tovs  ovpavovs  -rrpos  top  'HXiov, — Euseb.  Praparat. 


lib.  i.  C.7. 

fTovTov  yap  ^rjcL  d-eov  evont^ov  [xovov  ovpavov  Kvpiov  BEEA2AMHN 
KaXovvres,  b  can  ~apa  '^oivi^i  Vivpios  Ovpavov. —  Philo.  Byb.  ex  Sanchoniath. 
Bee  Orellius  on  this  passage,  for  his  view  of  Sanchoniathon's  account  of  the 
progress  of  idolatry,  "  a  cultu  arborum  et  plantarum  ad  solis  astroruinque 
cultuni,  a  Fetischismo  ad  Sabieismum." 

I  Nam  Sol  iste  quern  videmus  Deo  jubente,  propter  nos  quotidie  oritur, 
sed  nunquam  regnabit,  neque  permanebit  splendor  ejus,  sed  et  omnes  qui 
adorant  eum  in  pcenam  miseri  male  devenient.  Nos  autem  credimus  et  ado- 
ramus  Solem  verum,  Christum.— S.  Patricii  Confessio. 

§Rer.  Hibern.  Scriptor.  prol.  1.  54. 

Ij  It  was  to  a  stone,  we  know,  of  this  pyramidal  shape,  that  the  Phoeni- 


28  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

cesses,  is  thought  to  have  been  consecrated,  like  the  caves  of 
the  Mithraic  worship,  to  the  Sun.*  Among  various  other  monu- 
ments of  solar  vi^orship  through  Ireland,  may  be  noticed  the 
remains  of  a  cromlech,  or  tomb-altar,  near  Cloyne,  which  bore, 
originally,  the  name  of  Carig  Croith,  or  the  Sun's  Rock. 

Wherever  the  sun  has  been  made  an  object  of  adoration, 
the  moon  has  naturally  shared  in  the  worship ;  and,  accord- 
ingly, in  Ireland  this  luminary  was  adored  under  the  sacred 
name  of  Re.  While  some  of  their  moimtains,  too,  appear  to 
have  been  dedicated  to  the  sun,  we  meet  with  Slieve-Mis,  in 
the  county  of  Antrim,  signifying  Mountains  of  the  Moon. 
Those  golden  ornaments,  in  the  shape  of  a  crescent,  which 
have  been  found  frequently  in  the  Irish  bogs,  are  supposed  to 
have  been  connected  with  this  lunar  worship,  and  to  have 
been  borne  by  the  Druids  in  those  religious  ceremonies  which 
took  place  on  the  first  quarter  of  the  moon's  age.f 

The  worship  of  fire,  once  common  to  all  the  religions  of  the 
world,  constituted  also  a  part  of  the  old  Irish  superstitions; 
and  the  Inextinguishable  Fire  of  St.  Bridget  was  but  a  trans- 
fer to  Christian  shrines  and  votaries  of  a  rite  connected, 
through  long  ages,  with  the  religious  feelings  of  the  people. 
Annually,  at  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox,  the  great  festival 
of  La  Baal-tinne,  or  the  Day  of  the  Baal-Fire,  was  celebrated| ; 
and  through  every  district  of  Ireland  it  was  strictly  ordered 
that,  on  that  night,  all  fires  should  be  extinguished ;  nor  were 

cians  of  Emesa  offered  up  their  vows,  invoking  it,  as  a  symbol  of  the  8un» 
by  the  mystic  name  Elagabalus. — See  Oibbon,  vol.  i.  ch.  C. — This  stone,  like 
most  of  those  dedicated  to  the  sun,  was  black  ;  and  it  is  rather  remarkable 
that,  at  Stoneheiige,  whicli  is  supposed  in  general  to  have  been  a  temple 
consecrated  to  the  sun,  the  altar-stone  has  been  lately  discovered,  on  ex- 
amination, to  be  black. 

*  "  The  monument  at  the  New  Grange  exactly  points  out  to  us  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Mithratic  cavern  is  connected  with  the  Mithratic  pyra- 
mid."— "The  narrow  passage,  in  fact,  and  the  stone  bowls  of  this  Irish 
grotto  are  merely  the  counterpart  of  those  in  the  cave  of  Trophonius,  the 
pagodas  of  Hindostan,  and  the  pyramids  of  Egypt."— Faftcr,  on  the  Cabirie 
Mysteries,  vol.  ii.  The  reverend  writer  adds,  that  "  the  island  of  Ogygia, 
which  Plutarch  affirms  to  lie  due  west  of  Britain,  must  certainly  be  Ireland, 
and  no  other." 

tSee,  for  a  description  of  these  crescents,  Collectan.  No.  XIII.  Cough's 
Camden,  vol.  iii.— A  bas-relief,  found  at  Autun,  of  which  there  is  an  en- 
graving given  by  Monlfaucon,  represents  a  Gallic  Druid  holding  in  his  right 
hand  a  crescent  resembling  the  moon  at  six  days  old  ;  "  which,"  adds  Mont- 
faucon,  "  agrees  so  exactly  with  that  religious  care  of  the  Druids  not  to 
celebrate  the  ceremony  of  the  mistletoe  except  on  the  sixth  day  of  the  moon, 
that  I  think  it  cannot  be  doubted  but  that  this  crescent,  which  is  of  tlie  size 
of  the  moon  at  that  age,  respects  that  rite  of  the  Druids."— ^n^ij.  Explifj. 
vol.  ii.  part  ii.  book  v. 

X  To  this  day,  the  annual  rent  which  the  farmers  pay  to  their  landlords, 
in  the  month  of  May,  is  called  by  them  Cios-na-Bealtinne,  or  the  rent  of 
Baal's  fire. 


ADORATION    OF    FIRE    AND    WATER.  29 

any,  under  pain  of  death,  to  be  again  lighted  till  the  pile  of 
sacrifices  in  the  palace  of  Tara  was  kindled.  Among  the 
Persians  the  same  ceremony,  according  to  Hyde,  still  prevails : 
after  their  festival  of  tiic  21th  of  April,  the  domestic  fires  are 
everywhere  extinguished,  nor  would  any  good  believer  re- 
kindle them  but  by  a  taper  lighted  at  the  dwelling  of  the^ 
priest.*  A  similar  relic  of  Oriental  paganism  exists  also  in 
Jerusalem,  where,  annually,  at  the  time  of  Easter,  a  sacred  fire 
is  supposed  to  descend  into  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  of  the 
tapers  lighted  at  its  flame  a  considerable  traffic  is  made  by  the 
priests.  To  this  day  the  custom  of  making  bonfires  on  the 
first  night  of  May  prevails  throughout  Ireland ; — the  change 
of  the  period  of  the  festival  from  the  vernal  equinox  to  the 
commencement  of  May  having  been  made  soon  after  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity,  in  order  to  guard  against  its  interfe- 
rence with  the  holy  season  of  Lent. 

With  the  worship  of  fire,  that  of  water  was  usually  joined 
by  the  Gentiles ;  and  we  find,  in  like  manner,  particular .  foun- 
tains and  wells  were  held  sacred  among  the  Irish.  Even  that 
heresy,  or,  at  least,  variety  of  opinion,  which  is  known  to  have 
prevailed  among  the  Easterns  on  this  subject,  existed  also  in 
Ireland ;  as  we  are  told,  in  the  Tripartite  Life  of  St.  Patrick, 
of  a  certain  Magus,  or  Druid,  wlio  regarded  water  alone  as  an 
object  of  reverence,  considering  fire  to  be  an  evil  genius.f 
Hence,  by  his  own  wish,  it  is  added,  he  was  buried  under  a 
stone  in  a  certain  well,  in  Mayo,  which  had  been  long  vene- 
rated by  the  people  under  the  name  of  the  King  of  tlie  Waters. 
In  another  history  of  St.  Patrick  it  is  mentioned,  as  the  motive 
of  this  holy  man  for  visiting  Slane,  tliat  he  had  heard  of  a 
fountain  there  which  the  Magi  honoured,  and  made  offerings  to 
it  as  to  a  god.\  Even  in  our  own  times  the  Irish  are  described, 
by  one  well  versed  in  their  antiquities^,  as  being  in  the  habit 
of  visiting  fountains,  or  wells,  more  particularly  such  as  are  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  an  old  blasted  oak,  or  an  upright  unhewn 
stone,  and  hanging  rags  upon  the  branches  of  the  trees.  When 
asked  their  reason  for  this  practice,  the  answer  of  the  oldest 

*  See  account  of  this  ceremony,  from  Chardin,  in  Dupuis,  Origine  des 
Cultes,  to>i.  V.  169.  "  Tout  le  peuple  cr6dule  achete  aussitot  de  ces  bougies." 
This  mode  of  increasing  their  income,  says  Hyde,  is  resorted  to  by  them  in 
addition  to  their  tithes: — "  Praeter  decimas  excogitarunt  alium  sacerdotalem 
reditum  augendi  modum." 

t  L.  2.  c.  20.—"  This  reminds  us  of  the  old  Oriental  contests  between  the 
worshippers  of  fire  and  those  of  water,  and  leads  to  a  conclusion  that  some 
connexion  had  existed  between  Ireland  and  remote  parts  of  the  East." — 
Lanigan,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  chap.  5. 

X  Sir  W.  Betham's  Irish  Antiquarian  Researches,  Append.  29. 

§  Letters  of  Columbanus,  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  let.  iii. 

3* 


30  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

among  them  is  generally,  we  are  told,  to  the  effect  that  their 
ancestors  did  the  same,  and  that  it  was  designed  as  a  preven- 
tive against  the  sorceries  of  the  Druids,  There  is  scarcely  a 
people  throughout  the  East,  among  whom  this  primitive  prac- 
tice, of  hanging  pieces  torn  from  their  garments  upon  the 
branches  of  particular  trees,  has  not  been  found  to  prevail. 
The  wild-olive  of  Africa*,  and  the  Sacred  Tree  of  the  Hindusf, 
bear  usually  strung  upon  them  this  simple  sort  of  offering ; 
and  more  than  one  observant  traveller  in  the  East  has  been 
reminded,  by  this  singular  custom,  of  Ireland. 

There  are,  however,  some  far  less  innocent  coincidences  to 
be  remarked  between  the  Irish  and  Eastern  creeds.  It  is, 
indeed,  but  too  certain  that  the  sacrifice  of  human  victims 
formed  a  part  of  the  Pagan  worship  in  Ireland,  as  it  did  in 
every  country  where  tlie  solar  god,  Baal,  was  adored.  On  the 
eve  of  the  Feast  of  Samhin,  all  those  whom,  in  the  month  of 
March  preceding,  the  Druids  had,  from  their  tribunal  on 
Mount  Usneach,  condemned  to  death,  were,  in  pursuance  of 
this  solemn  sentence,  burned  between  two  fires.|  In  general, 
however,  as  regarded  both  human  creatures  and  brutes,  the 
ceremony  of  passing  them  between  two  fires  appears  to  have 
been  intended  not  to  affect  life,  but  merely  as  a  mode  of  peri- 
odical purification.^    Thus,  in  an  old  account  of  the  Irish  rites, 

*TIie  ArgnM.— Travels  iit  Europe  and  Jlfrica, hy  Colonel  Keating.  "A 
traveller,"  observes  this  writer,  "  will  see  precisely  tlie  like  in  tl>e  west  of 
Ireland."  Mungo  Park,  too,  speaks  of  the  largo  tree  called  Neenia  Tooba, 
"  decorated  with  innumerable  rags  and  scraps  of  cloth,"  and  which  "  nobody 
now  presumed  to  pass  without  hanging  up  something." 

t  See  Sir  William  Ouseley's  interesting  Travels  through  Persia,  vol.  ii. 
Append.  No.  9.— Among  the  trees  thus  decorated,  seen  by  Sir  William  in  the 
vale  of  Abdui,  and  elsewhere,  he  mentions  one  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
stone  pillar ;  bringing  to  his  recollection,  he  says,  various  remains  which  he 
had  seen  in  Wales  and  Ireland. 

J  From  an  old  Irish  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  the  learned  antiquary, 
Lhuyd,  cited  by  Dr.  O'Connor.  See  also  O'Brien's  Irish  Dictionary,  Beol, 
tinne,  where,  however,  the  translation  is  somewhat  different  from  that  of 
Dr.  O'Connor. 

§  The  superstition  of  purifying  between  two  fires  appears  to  have  been  as 
universal  as  it  was  ancient.  "  Les  adorateurs  de  feu,  dit  Maimonidc  (lib. 
iii.  C.38.),  publierent  qui  ccu.x  qui  ne  feraient  point  passer  leursjjnfans  par 
le  feu,  les  exposoient  au  danger  de  mourir." — Dvpiiis,  torn.  iii.  p.  740.  "  Tin 
narrative  of  an  embassy  from  Justin  to  the  KhAkan,  or  emperor,  who  then 
resided  in  a  fine  vale  near  the  Irtish,  mentions  the  Tartarian  custom  of  puri- 
fying the  Roman  ambassadors  by  conducting  them  between  '  two  fires.' " — 
Sir  TV.  Jones,  Fifth  Discourse,  on  the  Tartars.  "  The  more  ignorant  Irish," 
says  Ledwich,  "still  drive  their  cattle  through  these  fires  as  an  effectual 
means  of  preserving  them  from  future  accidents;"  and  Martin  tells  us  that 
the  natives  of  the  Western  Isles  of  Scotland,  which  are  known  to  have  been 
peopled  from  Ireland,  "when  they  w^ould  describe  a  man  as  being  in  a  great 
strait,  or  difficulty,  say  that  he  is  between  two  fires  of  Bel."  The  same  su- 
perstitious practice  vvas  observed  at  the  festival  of  the  goddess  Pales,  at 
Rome.  "  Per  flammas  saluisse  pecus,  saluisse  colonos."— 0?;i<Z.  Fast.  lib.  iv. 
Of  this  old  Roman  ceremony,  Niebuhr  thus  speaks :— "  The  Festival  of  Pales, 


HUMAN    SACRIFICES.  31 

it  is  said,  "  The  Druids  lighted  up  two  blazing  fires,  and  having 
performed  incantations  over  them,  compelled  the  herds  of  cattle 
to  pass  through  them,  according  to  a  yearly  custom."  But  it 
cannot  be  denied  that,  to  a  late  period,  some  of  the  most  hor- 
rible features  of  the  old  Canaanite  superstition  continued  to 
darken  and  disgrace  the  annals  of  the  Irish ;  for,  like  the  Is- 
raelite idolaters,  not  only  did  they  "  burn  incense  in  the  high 
places,  and  on  the  hills,  and  under  every  green  tree,"  but  also 
the  denounced  crime  of  Manasseh  and  Ahaz,  in  "  causing  their 
children  to  pass  through  the  fire,"  v^^as  but  too  faithfully  acted 
over  again  in  Pagan  Ireland.  A  plain,  situated  in  the  district 
at  present  called  the  county  of  Leitrim,  to  which  they  gave 
the  name  of  Magh-Sleacth,  or  Field  of  Slaughter,  was  the 
great  scene,  as  already  has  been  stated,  of  these  horrors  of 
primaeval  superstition  ;  for  there,  on  the  night  of  Samhin,  the 
same  dreadful  tribute  which  the  Carthaginians  are  known  to 
have  paid  to  Saturn,  in  sacrificing  to  him  their  first-born  chil- 
dren*, was  by  the  Irish  offered  up  to  their  chief  idol,  Crom- 
Cruach.f  This  frightful  image,  whose  head  was  of  gold,  stood 
surrounded  by  twelve  lesser  idols,  representing,  it  is  most  pro- 
bable, the  signs  of  the  zodiac  ; — the  connexion  of  sun-worship 
with  astronomy  having  been,  in  all  countries,  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  that  creed,  insomuch  that  science,  'no  less  than 
poetry,  may  be  said  to  have  profited  largely  by  superstition. 

How  far  those  pillar-temples,  or  Round  Towers,  which  form 
so  remarkable  a  part  of  Ireland's  antiquities,  and  whose  history 
is  lost  in  the  night  of  time,  may  have  had  any  connexion  with 
the  Pyrolatry,  or  Fire-worship,  of  the  early  Irish,  we  have  no 
certain  means  of  determining.  That  they  were  looked  upon 
as  very  ancient,  in  the  time  of  Giraldus,  appears  from  the  tale 
told  by  him  of  the  fishermen  of  Lough  Neagh  pointing  to  stran- 
g-ers,  as  they  sailed  over  that  lake,  the  tall,  narrow,  ecclesias- 
tical round  towers  under  the  water,|  supposed  to  have  been 

the  21st,  when  the  country  people  and  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Rome  used 
to  purify  themselves  by  passing  through  a  strong  fire,  as  our  ancestors  used 
to  kindle  fires  on  May-day." 

*  Diodor.  Sicul.  lib.  20. 

t  Dinseanchus,  MS.,  quoted  Rer.  Hibernic.  Script,  prol.  1.  22.  This  image 
was  destroyed  by  St.  Patrick.—"  In  commemoration,"  says  O'Flaherty,  "  of 
this  memorable  annihilation  of  idolatry,  I  believe,  the  last  Sunday  in  sum- 
mer is,  by  a  solemn  custom,  dedicated  throughout  Ireland,  and  commonly 
called  Domnach  Cromcruach,  that  is,  the  Sunday  of  Black  Crom  ;  I  suppose  on 
account  of  the  horrid  and  deformed  appearance  of  this  diabolical  spectre." — 
Ogygia,  part  iii.  ch.  xxii.  "  Cromcruach,"  says  Keating,  "  was  the  same  god 
that  Zoroaster  worshipped  in  Greece."  To  this  one  flighty  assertion  of 
Keating  may  be  traced  the  origin,  perhaps,  of  all  those  wild  notions  and 
fancies  which  Vallancey  afterwards  promulgated. 

t  "  Piscatores  Turres  istas,  qute,  more  patrise,  arctre  sunt  et  altiE,  necnon 
et  rotundae.  sub  undis  manifeste,  sereno  tempore,  conspiciunt."— CiraW. 
Cambrens.  Dist.  II.  c.  9. 


32  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

sunk  there  from  the  time  of  the  inundation  by  which  the  lake 
was  formed.  This  great  event, — the  truth  or  falsehood  of  which 
makes  no  difference  in  the  fact  of  the  period  assigned  to  it, — 
is  by  the  annalist  Tigernach  referred  to  the  year  of  Christ  62 ; 
thus  removing  the  date  of  these  structures  to  far  too  remote  a 
period  to  admit  of  their  being  considered  as  the  work  of  Chris- 
tian hands. 

The  notion,  that  they  were  erected  by  the  Danes*,  is  un- 
supported even  by  any  plausible  grounds.  In  the  time  of 
Giraldus,  the  history  of  the  exploitsof  these  invaders  was  yet 
recent ;  and  had  there  been  any  tradition,  however  vague,  that 
they  were  the  builders  of  these  towers,  the  Welsh  slanderer 
would  not  have  been  slow  to  rob  Ireland  of  the  honour.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  Giraldus  expressly  informs  us  that  they  were 
built  "  in  the  manner  peculiar  to  the  country."  Had  they  been 
the  work  of  Danes,  there  would  assuredly  have  been  found 
traces  of  similar  edifices,  either  in  their  own  Scandinavian  re- 
gions, or  in  the  other  countries  of  Europe  which  they  occupied. 
But  not  a  vestige  of  any  such  buildings  has  been  discovered, 
nor  any  tradition  relatin*  to  them;  and  while,  in  Ireland, 
Round  Towers,  or  the  remains  of  them,  are  found  in  places 
which  the  Danes  never  possessed,  in  some  of  the  principal 
seats  of  these  people,  such  as  Waterford  and  Wexford,  no 
building  of  the  kind  has  been  ever  known  to  exist. 

In  despair  of  being  able  to  ascertain  at  what  period,  and  by 
whom,  they  were  constructed,  our  antiquaries  are  reduced  to  the 
task  of  conjecturing  the  purposes  of  their  construction.  That 
they  may  have  been  appropriated  to  religious  uses  in  the  early 
ages  of  the  church,  appears  highly  probable  from  the  policy 
adopted  by  the  first  Christians  in  all  countries,  of  enlisting 
in  the  service  of  the  new  faith  the  religious  habits  and  asso- 
ciations of  the  old.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  they  might, 
at  some  period,  have  been  used  as  stations  for  pilgrims ;  for  to 
this  day,  it  appears,  the  prayers  said  at  such  stations  are  called 
Turrish  prayers.f    Another  of  the  notions  concerning  them  is, 

*  The  chief  supporters  of  this  opinion,  as  well  as  of  the  notion  that  these 
towers  were  intended  for  belfries,  are  Molyneux  (Natural  History  of  Ireland, 
Discourse  concerning  the  Danish  Mounts,  &c.),  and  Dr.  Ledwich,  in  his  An- 
tiquities. As  an  instance  of  the  vitality  of  a  misrepresentation,  it  may  be 
noticed  that  Lynch,  the  author  of  the  Defence  of  Ireland  against  Giraldus, 
was  the  first  who  mentioned,  and  only  upon  hearsay,  that  the  Danes  were 
the  builders  of  the  Round  Towers, — "  primi  erexisse  dicuntur."  The  Fran- 
ciscan, Walsh,  professing  to  copy  Lynch,  converts  into  certainty  what  Lynch 
gave  but  as  a  report;  and  on  this  authority,  so  misrepresented,  the  learned 
Molyneux,  and  others,  found  their  conclusions.  See,  on  this  subject.  Dr. 
Lanigan,  chap.  32. 

t  "  A  pilgrimage  is  called  Turrish  in  Irish,  and  prayers  said  by  pilgrims  at 
stations  are  called  Turrish  prayers ;  a  term  peculiar  to  this  country,  and  per- 
haps allusive  to  these  towers."— IVilliam  Tighc,  Survey  of  the  Co.  of  Kil- 
kenny. 


ROUND    TOWERS.  33 

that  they  were  places  of  confinement  for  penitents.  But,  be- 
sides the  absurdity  of  the  supposition,  that  a  people,  whose 
churches  were  all  constructed  of  wood  and  wicker,  should  have 
raised  such  elaborate  stone  towers  for  the  confinement  of  their 
penitents,  we  have  means  of  knowing  the  penitential  discipline 
of  the  early  Christian  Irish,  and  in  no  part  of  it  is  such  a  pen- 
ance as  that  of  imprisonment  in  a  Round  Tower  enjoined.  The 
opinion  of  Harris,  that  they  were  intended,  like  the  pillars  of 
the  Eastern  Stylites  for  the  habitation  of  solitary  anchorets*, 
is  in  so  far,  perhaps,  deserving  of  notice,  as  showing  how  natu- 
rally the  eye  turns  to  the  East,  in  any  question  respecting  the 
origin  of  Irish  antiquities.  It  is  pretended  that  the  models  of 
these  Inclusorii, — as,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  the  towers 
are  supposed  to  have  been, — were  brought  from  the  East  by 
some  of  those  Irish  monks  who  are  known  to  have  visited  the 
places  of  the  Holy  Land.  But  of  any  such  Oriental  importa- 
tion, at  that  period,  there  exists  no  record  whatever;  and 
Adamnan,  an  Irish  writer  of  the  seventh  century,  who,  in  a 
work  taken  down  by  him  fi'om  the  lips  of  a  French  traveller 
to  the  East,  gives  an  account  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Patriarchs 
and  other  h(3y  wonders,  makes  no  mention  of  the  abodes  of 
these  Pillar  Saints,  nor  of  the  models  which  they  are  alleged 
to  have  furnished  for  his  country's  Round  Towers.  It  may  be 
mentioned,  too,  as  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  resemblance 
here  assumed  is  wanting,  that  Simon  Stylites,  and  his  fanatical 
imitators,  lived  7'j)07i,  not  ivithin,  their  high  columns. 

To  the  notion  that  our  Irish  structures  were  intended  for 
watch-towers  or  beacons,  there  are  the  most  conclusive  objec- 
tions ; — their  situation  being  frequently  on  low  grounds,  where 
they  are  overlooked  by  natural  elevations  f,  and  the  apertures 
at  their  summit  not  being  sufficiently  large  to  transmit  any 
considerable  body  of  light.  Their  use  occasionally  as  belfries 
may  be  concluded  from  the  term,  Clocteach,  applied  to  some  of 
them ;  but,  besides  that  their  form  and  dimensions  would  not 
admit  of  the  swing  of  a  moderately  sized  bell,  the  very  circum- 
stance of  the  door  or  entrance  being  usually  from  eight  or  ten 
to  sixteen  feet  above  the  ground,  proves  them  to  have  been  in 
no  degree  more  fitted  or  intended  for  belfries,  than  for  any  of 
the  other  various  modern  uses  assigned  to  them. 

In  the  ornaments  of  one  or  two  of  these  towers,  there  are 

*  "  This  opinion  seems  to  have  been  first  proposed  by  a  Dean  Richardson, 
of  Belturbet,  from  whom  it  was  taken  by  Harris,  who  has  endeavoured  to 
make  it  appear  probable."— LaTii^fflw,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  32.  The  same 
opinion  was  adopted  also  by  Doctor  Milner.— ie«ers  from  Ireland,  Let.  14. 

t  In  the  deep  and  secluded  valley  of  Glendalough  stands  one  of  the  most 
interesting,  from  its  romantic  position,  of  all  these  Round  Towers. 


34  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

evident  features  of  a  more  modern  style  of  architecture,  which 
prove  them  to  have  been  added  to  the  original  structure  in 
later  times ;  and  the  same  remark  applies  to  the  crucifix  and 
other  Christian  emblems,  wliich  are  remarked  on  the  tower  at 
Swords,  and  also  on  that  of  Donoughmore.*  The  figures  of 
the  Virgin  and  St.  John,  on  one  of  the  two  Round  Towers  of 
Scotland,  must  have  been,  likewise,  of  course,  a  later  addition ; 
unless,  as  seems  likely  from  the  description  of  the  arches  in 
which  these  figures  are  contained,  the  structure  itself  is  en- 
tirely of  recent  date,  and,  like  the  tower  of  Kineth,  in  Ireland, 
a  comparatively  modern  imitation  of  the  old  Pagan  pattern. 

As  the  worship  of  fire  is  known,  unquestionably,  to  have 
formed  a  part  of  the  ancient  religion  of  the  country,  the  notion 
that  these  towers  were  originally  fire-temples,  appears  the 
most  probable  of  any  that  have  yet  been  suggested.  To  this 
it  is  objected,  that  inclosed  structures  are  wholly  at  variance 
with  that  great  principle  of  the  Celtic  religion,  which  consi- 
ders it  derogatory  to  divine  nature  to  confine  their  worship 
within  the  limits  of  walls  and  roofs ; — the  refined  principle 
upon  which  the  Magi  incited  Xerxes  to  burn  the  temples  of 
the  Greeks.  It  appears  certain,  however,  that,  at  a  later  period, 
the  use  of  fire-temples  was  adopted  by  the  Persians  themselves; 
though,  at  the  same  time,  they  did  not  the  less  continue  to  oflfer 
their  sacrifices  upon  the  hills  and  in  the  open  air,  employing 
the  Pyreia  introduced  by  Zoroaster,  as  mere  repositories  of 
the  sacred  fire.f  A  simple  altar,  with  a  brazier  burning  upon  it, 
was  all  that  the  temple  contained,  and  at  this  they  kindled  the 
fire  for  their  worship  on  the  high  places.  To  this  day,  as  mo- 
dern writers  <;oncerning  the  Parsees  inform  us,  the  part  of  the 
temple  called  the  Place  of  Fire,  is  accessible  only  to  the 
priests  | ;  and  on  the  supposition  that  our  towers  were,  in  like 
manner,  temples  in  which  the  sacred  flame  was  kept  safe  from 
pollution,  the  singular  circumstance  of  the  entrance  to  them 
being  rendered  so  difficult  by  its  great  height  from  the  ground 
is  at  once  satisfactorily  explained. 

But  there  is  yet  a  far  more  striking  corroboration  of  this 
view  of  the  origin  of  the  Round  Towers.     While  in  no  part 

*  A  print  of  this  tower  at  Swords,  with  a  crucifix  on  the  top,  may  be  seen 
at  the  end  of  Molyneux's  work. 

t "  Cependant,  tons  les  auteurs,  Arabes  et  Persans,  cit6s  par  M.  Hyde  ct 
M.  D'Herbelot,  attribuent  a  Zerdusht  l'6tablissement  des  Pyrees."— jPoitcAer, 
Memoires  de  VAcad.  torn  xxix.  M.  Foucher  has  shown,  that  the  two  appa- 
rently inconsistent  systems,— that  of  Zoroaster,  which  introduced  fire-tem- 
ples, and  the  old  primitive  mode  of  worshipping  in  the  open  air,— both  ex- 
isted together.  "  Pour  lever  cette  contradiction  apparente,  il  suffit  d'observer 
que  les  Pyr6es  n'etoient  pas  des  temples  proprement  dits,  mais  dc  simples 
oratoires,  d'ou  Ton  tiroit  le  feu  pour  sacrifier  sur  les  montagnee." 

X  Anquetil  du  Perron,  Zend  Avesta,  torn.  ii. 


ROUND    TOWERS.  35 

of  Continental  Europe  lias  any  building  of  a  similar  construc- 
tion been  discovered,  there  have  been  found,  near  Bhaugul- 
pore,  in  Hindostan,  two  towers,  which  bear  an  exact  resem- 
blance to  those  of  Ireland.  In  all  the  peculiarities  of  their 
shape* — ,  the  door  or  entrance,  elevated  some  feet  above  the 
groHnd, — the  four  windows  near  the  top,  facing  the  cardinal 
points,  and  the  small  rounded  roof, — these  Indian  temples  are, 
to  judge  by  the  description  of  them,  exactly  similar  to  the 
Round  Towers ;  and,  like  them  also,  are  thought  to  have 
belonged  to  a  form  of  worship  now  extinct  and  even  forgotten. 
One  of  the  objections  brought  against  the  notion  of  the  Irish 
Towers  having  been  fire-temples,  namely,  that  it  was  not 
necessary  for  such  a  purpose  to  raise  them  to  so  great  a 
height  t,  is  abundantly  answered  by  the  description  given  of 
some  of  the  Pyrea,  or  fire-temples  of  the  Guebres.  Of  these, 
some,  we  are  told,  were  raised  to  so  high  a  point  as  near  120 
feet  I,  the  height  of  the  tallest  of  the  Irish  towers ;  and  an 
intelligent  traveller,  in  describing  the  remains  of  one  seen  by 
him  near  Bagdad,  says,  "  the  annexed  sketch  will  show  the 
resemblance  this  pillar  bears  to  those  ancient  columns  so  Com- 
mon in  Ireland. "$ 

On  the  strength  of  the  remarkable  resemblance  alleged  to 
exist  between  the  pillar-temples  near  Bhaugulpore  and  the 
Round  Towers  of  Ireland,  a  late  ingenious  historian  does  not 
hesitate  to  derive  the  origin  of  the  Irish  people  from  that 
region;  and  that  an  infusion,  at  least,  of  population  from 
that  quarter  might,  at  some  remote  period,  have  taken  place, 
appears  by  no  means  an  extravagant  supposition.  The  opinion, 
that  Iran  and  the  western  parts  of  Asia  were  originally  the 
centre  from  whence  population  diffused  itself  to  all  the  regions 
of  the  world,  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  the  traditional  histories 
of  most  nations,  as  well  as  by  the  results  both  of  philological 
and  antiquarian  inquiries.      To  the  tribes  dispersed  after  the 

*  Voyages  and  Travels,  by  Lord  Valentia,  vol.  ii.— "  I  was  much  pleased," 
says  his  lordship,  "  with  the  sight  of  two  very  singular  Round  Towers,  about 
a  mile  north-west  of  the  town.  They  much  resemble  those  buildings  in 
Ireland,  which  have  hitherto  puzzled  the  antiquaries  of  the  sister  kingdoms, 
excepting  that  they  are  more  ornamented.  It  is  singular  that  there  is  no 
tradition  concerning  them,  nor  are  they  held  in  any  respect  by  the  Hindoos. 
The  Rajah  of  Jyanegur  considers  them  as  holy,  and  has  erected  a  small 
building  to  shelter  the  great  number  of  his  subjects  who  annually  come  to 
worship  here." 

t  Dr.  Milner,  Tour  in  Ireland,  letter  xiv.  "  The  tower  at  Kildare  is  cal- 
culated to  be  four  feet  loftier  than  the  pillar  of  Trajan  at  Rome"— D'Mton. 

I  "  These  edifices  are  rotundas,  of  about  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  and  raised 
in  height  to  a  point  near  120  feet."—Hanway's  Travels  in  Persia,  vol.  i.  part 
iii    chap.  43. 

§  Hon.  Major  Keppel's  Personal  Narrative,  vol.  i.  chap.  7, 


36  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Trojan  war,  it  has  been  the  pride  equally  both  of  Celtic  and  of 
Teutonic  nations  to  trace  back  their  origin.  The  Saxon 
Chronicle  derives  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Britain  from 
Armenia;  and  the  great  legislator  of  the  Scandinavians,  Odin, 
is  said  to  have  come,  with  his  followers,  from  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  Euxine  Sea.  By  those  who  hold  that  the  Celts 
and  Persians  were  originally  the  same  people  *,  the  features  of 
affinity  so  strongly  observable  between  the  Pagan  Irish  and  the 
Persians  will  be  accounted  for  without  any  difficulty.  But, 
independently  of  this  hypothesis,  the  early  and  long-continued 
intercourse  which  Ireland  appears  to  have  maintained,  through 
the  Phoenicians,  with  the  East,  would  sufficiently  explain  the 
varieties  of  worship  wliich  were  imported  to  her  shores,  and 
which  became  either  incorporated  with  her  original  creed,  or 
formed  new  and  distinct  rallying  points  of  belief  In  this 
manner  the  adoration  of  shaped  idols  was  introduced  ;  displa- 
cing, in  many  parts — as  we  have  seen,  in  the  instance  of  the 
idol  Crom-Cruach — that  earliest  form  of  superstition  which 
confined  its  worship  to  rude  erect  stones.  To  the  same  later 
ritual  belonged  also  those  images  of  which  some  fragments 
have  been  found  in  Ireland,  described  f  as  of  black  wood, 
covered  and  plated  with  thin  gold,  and  the  chased  work  on 
them  in  lines  radiated  from  a  centre,  as  is  usual  in  the  images 
of  the  sun.  There  was  also  another  of  these  later  objects  |  of 
adoration,  called  Kerman  Kelstach  5,  the  favourite  idol  of  the 
Ultonians,  which  had  for  its  pedestal,  as  some  say,  the  golden 
stone  of  Clogher,  and  in  which,  to  judge  by  the  description 

*  Cluverius,  Keysler,  Pelloutier,  and  others.  "  A  regard  des  Perses,"  says 
Pelloutier,  "  ils  violent  certainement  le  meme  peuple  que  les  Celtes." 

t  By  Governor  Pownall,  in  his  account  of  these  and  other  curious  Irish  re- 
mains to  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  1774.  In  speaking  of  one  of  the  images, 
which  he  supposes  to  have  been  a  symbolic  image  of  Mithra,  he  remarks, 
that  the  Gaditanians  used  such  radiated  figures,  and  adds,  "  from  the  known 
and  confirmed  intercourse  of  this  Phcenician  or  Carthaginian  colony  with 
Ireland,  all  difliiculty  as  to  this  symbolic  form  ceases."  Pursuing  the  view 
that  naturally  suggests  itself  on  the  subject,  the  learned  antiquary  adds, 
"  Whatever  the  image  was,  I  must  refer  it  to  the  later  line  of  theology  rather 
than  to  the  Celtic  Druidic  theology  of  the  more  ancient  Irish.  To  the  colo- 
nies, or  rather  to  the  settlements  and  factories  of  the  later  people  of  Car- 
thage and  Gades,  and  not  to  the  original  Phoenicians,  I  refer  those  several 
things  heretofore  and  hereinafter  described." 

I  To  a  still  later  mythology  belongs  the  belief  of  the  Irish  in  a  sort  of 
Genii  or  Fairies,  called  Sidhe,  supposed  to  inhabit  pleasant  hills.  Lanigan, 
vol.  i.  chap.  5.  In  the  same  class  with  the  Sidhe,  Vallancey  places  the  Ban- 
sidhe,  or  Banshee,—"  a  young  demon,"  as  he  explains  it,  "  supposed  to  attend 
each  family,  and  to  give  notice  of  the  death  of  a  relation  to  persons  at  a  dis- 
tance."—Ft  ndjc.  of  Ant.  Hist.  There  were  also  the  Suire,  or  Nymphs  of  the 
Sea,  claimed  by  Vallancey  as  the  Dete  Syrioe;  and  described  by  Keating,  as 
playing  around  the  ships  of  the  Milesian  heroes  during  their  passage  to 
Ireland. 

§The  scholia  of  Cathold  Maguir,  quoted  by  O'Flaherty,  Ogygia,  part  iii. 
chap.  22. 


riLLAR    TEMPLES.  37 

of  it,  there  were  about  the  same  rudiments  of  shape  as  in  the 
first  Grecian  Hermap.*  Through  the  same  channel  which 
introduced  these  and  similar  innovations,  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
probable that,  at  a  still  later  period,  the  pillar-temples  of  the 
Eastern  fire-worship  might  have  become  known ;  and  that  even 
from  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  a  colony  of  Guebres  might  have 
found  their  way  to  Ireland,  and  there  left,  as  enigmas  to  pos- 
terity, those  remarkable  monuments  to  whicli  only  the  corres- 
ponding remains  of  their  own  original  country  can  now  afford 
any  clue. 

The  connexion  of  sun-worship  with  the  science  of  astronomy 
has  already  been  briefly  adverted  to ;  and  the  four  windows, 
facing  the  four  cardinal  points,  which  are  found  in  the  Irish  as 
well  as  in  the  Eastern  pillar-temples,  were  alike  intended,  no 
doubt,  for  the  purposes  of  astronomical  observation, — for  deter- 
mming  the  equinoctial  and  solstitial  times,  and  thereby  regu- 
lating the  recurrence  of  religious  festivals.  The  Phoenicians 
themselves  constructed  their  buildings  on  the  same  principle ; 
and,  in  the  temple  of  Tyre,  where  stood  the  two  famous  columns 
dedicated  to  the  Wind  and  to  Fire,  there  were  also  pedestals, 
we  are  told,  whose  four  sides,  facing  the  cardinal  points,  bore 
sculptured  upon  them  the  four  figures  of  the  zodiac,  by  which 
the  position  of  those  points  in  the  heavens  is  marked.!  With 
a  similar  view  to  astronomical  uses  and  purposes  the  Irish 
Round  Towers  were  no  doubt  constructed ;  and  a  strong  evi- 
dence of  their  having  been  used  as  observatories  is,  that  we 
find  them  called  by  some  of  the  Irish  annalists  Celestial  Indexes. 
Thus  in  an  account  given  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters, 
of  a  great  thunder-storm  at  Armagh,  it  is  said  that  "  the  city 
was  seized  by  lightning  to  so  dreadful  an  extent  as  to  leave  not 
a  single  hospital,  nor  cathedral  church,  nor  palace,  nor  Celestial 
Index,  that  it  did  not  strike  with  its  flame."  |  Before  this  and 
other  such  casualties  diminished  it,  the  number  of  these  towers 
must  have  been  considerable.  §  From  the  language  of  Giraldus, 

* "  IlXaTTeTai  6c  Kai  «;^£«p,  kui  OTrouf,  Kai  TErpayaJvof,  rw  (T^rjUCiTt  6' 
Epfit/i.^^ — Phurnutus  de  J^atur.  Dear. 

t  Joseph.  Antiq.  1.  viii.  c.  2. 

X  Annal.  Ult.  ad  ann.  995. ;  also  Tigernacli,  and  the  Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters  for  the  same  year.  Tijrernach  adds,  that  "  there  never  happened 
before  in  Ireland,  nor  ever  will,  till  the  day  of  judgment,  a  similar  visita- 
tion." The  learned  Colgan,  in  referring  to  this  record  of  the  annalists,  de- 
scribes the  ruin  as  extending  to  the  "  church,  belfries,  and  Towers  of  Ar- 
magh ;"  thus  clearly  distinguishing  the  Round  Towers  from  the  belfries. 

§  It  is  generally  computed  that  there  are  now  remaining  fifty-six  ;  but  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Wright,  in  his  account  of  Glendalough,  makes  the  number  sixty- 
two  ;  and  Mr.  Brewer  (Beauties  of  Ireland,  Introduction),  is  of  opinion,  that 
"  several,  still  remaining  in  obscure  parts  of  the  country,  are  entirely  unno- 
ticed by  topographical  writers." 

Vol.  I.  .  4 


38  IIISTOKY    OF    IllELAND. 

it  appears  that  they  were  common  in  his  time  througli  the 
country;  and  in  thus  testifying  their  zeal  for  the  general  object 
of  adoration,  by  multiplying  the  temples  dedicated  to  its  honour, 
they  but  followed  the  example  as  well  of  the  Greek  as  of  the 
Persian  lire-worshippers.* 

There  remain  yet  one  or  two  other  hypotheses,  respecting 
the  origin  and  purposes  of  these  structures,  to  which  it  may  be 
expected  that  I  should  briefly  advert.  By  some  the  uses  to 
which  they  were  destined  have  been  thought  similar  to  that  of 
the  turrets  in  t!ie  neighbourhood  of  Turkish  mosques,  and 
from  their  summits,  it  is  supposed,  proclamation  was  made  of 
new  moons  and  approaching  religious  festivities.  A  kind  of 
trumpetf ,  which  has  been  dug  up  in  the  neighbourhood  of  some 
of  these  towers,  having  a  large  mouth-hole  in  the  side,  is  con- 
jectured to  have  been  used  to  assist  the  voice  in  these  an- 
nouncements to  the  people.  Another  notion  respecting  them 
is,  that  they  were  symbols  of  tliat  ancient  Eastern  worship,  of 
which  the  God  Mahadeva,  or  Siva,  was  the  object  J;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  ingenious  writer,  in  one  of  the  most  learn- 
edly argued,  but  least  tenable,  of  all  the  hypotheses  on  the 
subject,  contends  that  they  were  erected,  in  the  sixth  and 
seventh  centuries,  by  tiic  primitive  Coenobites  and  Bishops, 
with  the  aid  of  the  newly  converted  Kings  and  Toparchs,  and 
were  intended  as  strong-holds,  in  time  of  war  and  danger,  for 
tlie  sacred  utensils,  relics,  and  books,  belonging  to  those 
cluu-ches  5  in  whose  immediate  neighbourhood  they  stood.  To 
be  able  to  invest  even  with  plausibility  so  inconsistent  a  notion 
as  that,  in  times  when  the  churches  themselves  were  framed 
rudely  of  wood,  there  could  be  found  either  the  ambition  or  the 
skill  to  supply  them  with  adjuncts  of  such  elaborate  workman- 
ship II ,  is,  in  itself,  no  ordinary  feat  of  ingenuity.     But  the 

*  In  speaking  of  the  Prytanea,  which,  according  to  Bryant,  were  properly 
towers  for  the  jirest-rvation  of  the  sarrod  fire,  a  learned  writer  says,  "  When 
we  consider  that  b  jfore  the  time  of  Theseus,  every  village  in  Attica  had  its 
Prytaneum,  we  may  collect  how  generally  the  fire-worship  prevailed  in  those 
times."— Dissert  at  ion  vpon  the  jQlhenian  Skirophoria.  So  late  as  the  10th  cen- 
tury, when  Ebn  flankal  visited  Pars,  there  was  not,  as  lie  tells  us,  "  any  dis- 
trict of  that  province,  or  any  village,  without  a  fire-temple." 

t  Sec  a  description  of  these  Innnpets  in  fJone;h's  Tamden.  and  in  Collectai 
de  Reb.  Hibern.,  No.  V.i. 

J  See,  for  the  grounds  of  lliis  \i.\v,  (.'t  iicr;il  \';illanfcy\s  imaginary  coil 
cidences  between  the  Eocad  of  the  Irisli  and  tlie  Havani  of  iJie  Hindoos  ; 
also  between  the  Mnidhr  or  Sun-stone  of  the  former,  and  the  Mahody  of  t 
Genioo^.—  Findination  of  ancient  History  of  Ireland,  pp.  ICO.  212.  503.  Th 
name  notion  has  been  followed  up  in  Mr.  O'Brien's  clever,  but  rather 
fanciful  disquisition,  on  the  subject,  lately  published. 

^Inquiry  into  the  Origin  and  primitive  Use  of  the  Irish  Pillar-Tower,  h\ 
Colonel  Harvey  de  Montmorency  Morres. 

II  Dr.  Milner,  a  high  authority  on  such  subjects,  says  of  these  structures  : 
•'  The  workmanrhip  of  them  is  excellent,  as  ai)pears  to  ih^-  eye,  and  as  iJ 


CROMLEACHS.  39 

truth  is,  that  neither  then  nor  I  would  add,  at  any  other  assign- 
able period,  within  the  wliole  range  of  Irish  history,  is  such  a 
state  of  things  known  authentically  to  have  existed  as  can 
solve  the  difficulty  of  these  towers,  or  account  satisfactorily, 
at  once,  for  the  object  of  the  buildings,  and  the  advanced  civili- 
zation of  the  architects  who  erected  them.  They  must,  there- 
fore, be  referred  to  times  beyond  the  reach  of  historical  record. 
That  they  were  destined  originally  to  religious  purposes  can 
liardly  admit  of  question;  nor  can  those  who  have  satisfied 
themselves,  from  the  strong  evidence  wliich  is  found  in  the 
writings  of  antiquity,  that  there  existed,  between  Ireland  and 
some  parts  of  the  East,  an  early  and  intimate  intercourse, 
harbour  much  doubt  as  to  the  real  birthplace  of  the  now  un- 
known worship  of  which  these  towers  remain  the  solitary  and 
enduring  monuments. 

Having  now  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  these  remark- 
able buildings  that  degree  of  attention  which  their  connexion 
with  the  history  of  the  country  seemed  to  call  for,  I  shall 
proceed  to  notice  those  other  ancient  remains  with  which  Ire- 
land 'abounds,  and  which,  though  tar  less  peculiar  and  myste- 
rious, bear  even  still  more  unquestionable  testimony  to  the 
origin  and  high  antiquity  of  her  people.  That  most  common 
of  all  Celtic  monuments,  the  Cromleach*,  which  is  to  be 
found  not  only  in  most  parts  of  Europe,  but  also  in  Asiaf,  and 
exhibits,  in  the  strength  and  simplicity  of  its  materials,  the 
true  character  of  the  workmanship  of  antiquity,  is  also  to  be 
found,  in  various  shapes  and  sizes,  among  the  monuments  of 
» ■ 

proved  by  their  durability."— /T/^twry,  ^-c.  Letter  14.  No  words,  however,  can 
convey  a  more  lively  notion  of  the  time  they  have  lasted  and  may  still  en- 
dure, than  does  the  simple  fact  slated  in  the  following  sentence  : — "  In  gene- 
ral, they  are  entire  to  this  day  ;  thouRh  many  churches,  near  which  they 
stood,  are  either  in  ruins  or  t;itat!y  (le:<tro}e(l." — .S'.  Brcrcton,  vn  the  Round 
Towers,  Archwolog.  Loud.  Hoc. 

*  So  called  in  Irish.  "  It  is  remarkable  that  all  tiie  ancient  altars  found 
iu  Ireland,  and  now  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Cromleachs  or  sloping 
stones,  were  originally  called  Bothal,  or  the  House  of  God,  and  they  seem  to 
be  of  the  same  species  as  those  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  called  by 
the  Hebrews,  Bethel,  which  has  the  same  signification  as  the  Irish  Bothul." 
— Beaiiford,  Druidism  revived.  Collect.  Hihern.  JVo.  7. 

From  the  word  Bethel,  the  name  Baetyli,  applied  to  the  sacred  stones  of 
the  Pagans,  was  evidently  derived.  "  TJiis  sort  of  monument,"  says  Sca- 
liger  (in  Euseb.),  "  though  beloved  by  God  at  first,  became  odious  to  him 
when  perverted  to  idolatrous  purposes  by  the  Canaanites  :" — Odit  eum  quod 
Chananaei  deduxerunt  ilium  ungondi  sen  consecrandi  ritum  in  ritum  idolo- 
latriae. 

t  In  Sir  Richard  Hoare's  History  of  Wiltshire,  there  are  representations 
given  of  two  Cromleachs  in  Malabar,  exactly  similar  to  those  of  the  British 
Isles.  See  also,  Maundrell's  Travels,  for  an  account  of  a  monument  of  the 
same  description  upon  the  Syrian  coast,  "  in  the  very  region,"  says  King, 
"  of  the  Phoenicians  themselves." — Munivienta  j9ntiqua.  King  supposes  this 
structure,  described  by  Maundrell,  to  have  been  of  nearly  the  very  same 
form  and  kind  as  the  crondeach,  or  altar,  called  Kit's  C'otty  House,  in  Kent. 


40  HISTORY    OF    IIIELAND. 

Ireland.  Of  these  I  shall  notice  only  such  as  have  attracted 
most  the  attention  of  our  antiquaries.  In  the  neighbourhood 
of  Dundalk,  in  the  county  of  Louth,  we  are  told  of  a  large 
Cromleach,  or  altar,  which  fell  to  ruin  some  time  since,  and 
whose  site  is  described  as  being  by  the  side  of  a  river,  "  be- 
tween two  Druid  groves."*  On  digging  beneath  the  ruins, 
there  was  found  a  great  part  of  the  skeleton  of  a  human  figure, 
which  bore  the  appearance  of  having  been  originally  inclosed 
in  an  urn.  There  were  also,  mixed  up  with  the  bones,  the 
fragments  of  a  broken  rod  or  wand,  which  was  supposed  to 
have  been  a  part  of  the  insignia  of  the  person  there  interred, 
and  might  possibly  have  been  that  badge  of  the  Druidical  office 
which  is  still  called  in  Ireland,  the  conjuror's  or  Druid's  wand. 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  this  ruined  Cromleach  is  another, 
called  by  the  inhabitants  "the  Giant's  Load,"  from  the  tradition 
attached  to  most  of  these  monuments,  that  they  were  the  works 
of  giants  in  the  times  of  old.f  At  Castle-Mary,  near  Cloyne, 
are  seen  the  remains  of  a  large  Cromleach,  called  in  Irish  Carig 
Croith,  or  the  Rock  of  the  Sun, — one  of  those  names  which 
point  so  significantly  to  the  ancient  worship  of  the  country ; 
and,  in  the  same  county,  near  Glanworth,  stands  a  monument 
of  this  kind,  called  Labacolly,  or  the  Hag's  Bed,  of  such  dimen- 
sions as  to  form  a  chamber  about  twenty-five  feet  long  and  six 
feet  wide. I 

Not  less  ancient  and  general,  among  the  Celtic  nations,  was 
the  circle  of  upright  stones,  with  either  an  altar  or  tall  pillar 
in  the  centre,  and,  like  its  prototype  at  Gilgal,  serving  some- 
times as  a  temple  of  worship,  sometimes  as  a  place  of  national 
council  or  inauguration.  That  the  custom  of  holding  judicial 
meetings  in  this  manner  was  very  ancient  appears  from  a 
group  which  we  find  represented  upon  the  shield  of  Achilles, 
of  a  Council  of  Elders,  seated  round  on  a  circle  of  polished 
stones.^     The  rough,  unhewn  stone,  however,  used  in  their 

*  Loutkiuna,  book  iii.  The  frequent  discovery  of  human  bones  under  these 
monuments  favours  tlie  opinion  of  Wright  and  otliers,  that  they  were,  in 
peneral,  erected  over  graves.  See,  for  some  of  the  grounds  of  this  view, 
Wright's  Remarks  on  Plate  V.,  Louthiana.  It  is,  indeed,  most  probable, 
that  all  the  Druidical  monuments,  circles,  cromleachs,  &c.,  whatever  other 
uses  they  may  have  served,  were  originally  connected  with  interment. 

t  "  The  native  Irish  tell  a  strange  story  about  it,  relating  how  the  whole 
was  brought,  all  at  once,  from  the  neighbouring  mountains,  by  a  giant  called 
Parrah  bough  M'Shaggean,  and  who,  they  say,  was  buried  near  this  place." 
— Louth. 

X  For  an  account  of  various  other  remains  of  this  description  in  Ireland, 
sec  King's  Muniment.  Antiq.,  vol.  i.  pp.  253,  254.,  &c. 

§ o\  6e  yepovTtg 

Emr'  iTi  ^caroici  \i6oig,  tepfjj  evt  kvkKo^.— Iliad,  xviii.  503. 
For  the  credit  of  the  antiquity  of  these  stones,  King  chooses  to  translate 
^tuToiai  (l  know  not  on  what  authority),  "  rough,  unhewn  stones." 


ROCKING    STOINES.  41 

circular  temples  by  the  Druids,  was  the  true,  orthodox  observ- 
ance* of  the  divine  command  delivered  to  Noah,  "If  thou 
wilt  make  me  an  altar  of  stone,  thou  shalt  not  build  it  of  hewn 
stone  :"  for  even  those  nations  which  lapsed  into  idolatry  still 
retained  the  first  patriarchal  pattern,  and  carried  it  with  them 
iu  their  colonizing  expeditions  tln'oughout  the  world.  All 
monuments,  therefore,  which  depart  from  the  primitive  observ- 
ance just  mentioned  are  to  be  considered  as  belonging  to  a 
comparatively  recent  date. 

The  ruinous  remains  of  a  circular  temple,  near  Dundalk, 
formed  a  part,  it  is  supposed,  of  a  great  work  like  that  at 
iStonehenge,  being  open,  as  we  are  told,  to  the  east,  and  com- 
posed of  similar  circles  of  stone  within.f  One  of  tlie  old 
English  traditions  respecting  Stonehenge  is,  that  the  stones 
were  transported  thither  from  Ireland,  having  been  brought  to 
the  latter  country  by  giants  from  the  extremities  of  Africa  ; 
and  in  the  time  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  there  was  still  to  be 
seen,  as  he  tells,  on  the  plain  of  Kildarc,  an  immense  monu- 
ment of  stones,  corresponding  exactly  in  appearance  and  con- 
struction with  that  of  Stonehenge.]: 

The  Heathen  Irish,  in  their  feeling  of  reverence  for  parti- 
cular stones  and  rocks,  but  followed  the  example  of  most  of 
the  Eastern  nations;  and  the  marvellous  virtue  supposed  to  lie 
in  the  famous  Lia  Fail,  or  Stone  of  Destiny,  used  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Irish  monarchs,  finds  a  parallel  in  the  atizoe^,  or  silvery 
stone  of  the  Persians,  to  which  a  similar  charm,  in  the  choice 
of  their  kings,  used  to  be  attributed  by  the  Magi.  Those  mo- 
numents, too,  known  by  the  name  of  Rocking  Stones,  and  found 
in  Ireland  as  well  as  in  Cornwall  and  Wales,  appear  in  some 

*  "  It  appears  extremely  probable,  tiiut  all  tlic  Cities  of  Refuge,  of  which 
so  much  is  said  in  the  Scriptures,  were  temples  erected  in  this  circular  uiau- 
iier." — Identity  of  the  Religions  called  Druidical  and  Hebrew. 

tThe  remains,  according  to  Wright,  of  a  temple  or  theatre.  'It  is  in- 
closed on  one  side  with  a  rampart,  or  ditch,  and  seems  to  have  been  a 
very  great  work,  of  the  sam^;  kijid  with  that  of  Stonehenge.  in  England."— 
Louthiana. 

I  Unde  et  ibidem  lapides  quidam  aliis  simillimi  similique  mode  crcrti, 
usque  in  hodiernum  conspiciuntur.  JMirum  qualiter  tanti  lapides,  tot  etiam, 
&c.  &c. —  Topograph.  Ilibern.,  c.  18. 

§  "  Atizcien  in  India  ct  in  Perside  ac  Ida  monte  nasci  tradit,  argenteo  ni- 

tore  fulgenteni necessariam  Magis  regeni  constituentibus."— r/i/». 

lib.  xxAvii.  c.  54.  See  also  Boethius,  dc  Oemviis.  In  Borlase's  Antiquities  of 
Cornwall,  the  name  of  this  stone  is  printed  incorrectly  Artizoe,  and  as  no 
reference  is  given  to  the  passage  of  Pliny  where  it  is  mentioned,  the  word 
has  been  taken  on  trust  from  Borlase  by  all  succeeding  writers.  Among 
others,  General  Vallancey  has  amusingly  founded  on  the  typocraphical  error 
one  of  his  ever  ready  etymologies.  "  Now,  Art  in  Irish  signifying  a  ston« 
as  well  as  Clock,  the  name  of  this  stone  of  ointment,  viz.  Art.dii.iaca,  may 
have  been  corrupted  by  Pliny  into  Artizoe  of  the  Persians."— f'i/tt/ic.  Ancient 
Hint,  of  Ireland,  chap.  ii.  sect.  2. 

4* 


42  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

respects  to  resemble  that  sort  of  natural  or  artificial  wonders, 
which  the  Phoenicians  held  sacred,  under  the  name  of  BsEtyli, 
or  animated  stones.  These  they  declare  to  have  been  fabri- 
cated by  the  god  Ouranos,  or  Heaven*,  the  deity  worshipped 
by  the  Samotliracians,  and  also,  under  the  title  of  Samhin,  or 
Heaven,  by  the  Irish.  That  these  stones — which  moved,  it  is 
said,  as  if  stirred  by  a  demonf, — formed  a  part  of  the  idolatrous 
ceremonies  of  the  East,  may  be  concluded  frpm  the  mention  of 
them,  by  some  ancient  writers,  as  having  been  seen  at  that 
great  scat  of  sun-worship,  Heliopolis,  or  the  ancient  Balbec. 
In  some  instances  it  would  appear  that  the  Bstyli  v/ere,  in  so 
far,  unlike  the  mobile  monument  of  the  Druids,  that  they  were 
but  small  and  portable  stones,  worn  by  the  religious  as  amu- 
lets.^ There  were  also,  however,  some  answering  exactly  to 
the  description  of  the  Druidical  rocking-stones,  as  appears  from 
the  account  given  in  Ptolemy  Hepheestion,  an  author  cited  by 
Photius,  of  a  vast  Gigonian  stone,  as  he  calls  it,  which  stood 
on  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  and  which,  though  it  might  be 
stirred  by  the  stalk  of  an  asphodel,  no  human  force  could  re- 
move.§  It  is  rather  remarkable,  too,  that,  as  we  learn  from  a 
passage  of  Apollonius  Rhodiusjl,  not  only  was  this  delicate 

*  Ert  h  ttrevoricre  Qeog  Ovpavog  ^aiTv\ia  \iOovg  eixij-v^ovs  fxTj^ai'ticafjiEvos. 
— Philo  Bybl.  Stukeley,  in  his  zeal  to  claim  for  the  Druids  some  knowledge 
of  the  magnetic  needle,  supposes  these  moving  stones,  attributed  by  Sanco- 
nialho  to  Ouranus,  to  liave  been  magnets. — 9hury  Described,  chap.  16.  "  It 
was  usual  (among  the  Egyptians)  to  place  with  much  labour  one  vast  stone 
upon  another,  for  a  religious  memorial.  The  stones  they  thus  placed  they 
oftentimes  poised  so  equally  that  they  were  aflected  with  the  least  external 
force ;  nay,  a  breath  of  wind  would  sometimes  make  them  vibrate." — Bryant, 
Jlnal.  Mythol.  vol.  iii.  The  following  accurate  description  of  a  Bocking  Stone 
occurs  in  Pliny  :—"Juxta  Harpasa  oppidum  Asia;  cautes  stat  horrenda,  uno 
digito  mobilis  :  eadcm,  si  toto  corporc  impellatur,  resistens."    Lib.  ii.  cap.  38. 

t  Eyw  jxiv  u)[x)jv  ^cioTcpov  civai  to  X9'^I*^^  '"""^  ^airvXov'  b  Se  laiSwpos  Sai- 
fioviov  fxaWov  E\tytv\ival  yap  riva  Sainova  tov  Kivovvra  avTov.—  Vita  Isi- 
dori,  apud  Photiuin.  But  though  Isidorus,  according  to  this  statement  of  his 
biographer  Damascius,  imagined  some  demon  to  be  stirring  within  the  .stone, 
it  is  gravely  explained  that  he  did  not  suppose  it  to  be  of  the  class  of  noxious 
demons,  nor  yet  one  of  the  immaterial  and  pure. 

X  Sometimes,  however,  as  in  the  case  of  that  Bajtylos  which  formed  the 
statue  of  Cybele,  and  was  supposed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven,  they  must 
have  been  of  a  larger  size.  See  Rcmarques  de  V  Abbe  Banier,  vol.  v.  p.  24L  ; 
as  also  a  Dissertation  sur  Ics  Bxtylcs,  by  M.  Falconet,  Memoircs  de  /'  Acade- 
mic, tom.  vi. 

§  Phot.  lib.  iii. a\|/  aviovrai 

II  Trivco  tvi  afi(j)tpvTtj  irctpvtVt  Kai  ajxncaTO  yaiav 
A/:<i/»'  ai'Tots'  arrjXas  re  6v(a  KadayrcpOev  env^tv, 
'ilv  ircpij,  ^ajiSos  irepioaiov  avSpaci  \cvcreiv, 
Kivvrai  ii')(ri£VTOS  viro  -voirj  (iopea. — Argonaut.  1.  1. 
In  Tenos,  by  the-  blue  waves  compass'd  round, 
High  o'er  the  slain  he  hcap'd  the  funeral  mound  ; 
Tlien  rear'd  two  stones,  to  mark  that  sacred  ground,— 
One,  poised  so  light  that,  (as  the  mariner  sees 
Witli  wondering  gaze,)  it  stirr;  at  every  breeze  ! 


HILL    OF    USNEACH.  43 

poise  of  the  stone  produced  sometimes,  as  among  the  Druids, 
by  art,  but  a  feeling-  of  sacredness  was  also  attached  to  such 
productions,  and  they  were  connected,  as  in  the  Druidical 
ritual,  with  interment. 

The  sacred  Hills  and  Tumuli  of  the  Irish  were  appropriated 
to  a  variety  of  purposes ;  for  there  the  sacrifice  was  offered  by 
the  Priest,  from  thence  the  legislator  or  judge  promulgated  his 
decrees,  and  there  the  King,  on  his  inauguration,  was  presented 
with  the  Wand  of  Power.  Of  these  consecrated  high  places*, 
the  most  memorable  was  the  Hill  of  Usneach,  in  West  Meath, 
as  well  from  the  National  Convention  of  which  it  was  fre- 
quently the  scencf,  as  because,  upon  its  summit,  the  limits  of 
the  five  provinces  of  Ireland  touched  ;  and,  in  like  manner  as 
the  field  of  Enna  was  called  "  the  navel  of  Sicily|,"  and  the 
site  of  the  Temple  of  Delphi  "  the  navel  of  the  earthy,"  so 
the  stone  which  marked  this  conmion  boundary  of  the  five 
Provinces  into  which  the  island  was  then  divided,  was  termed 
"  the  navel  of  Ireland." ||  Here  the  Druids,  on  solemn  occa- 
sions, were  accustomed  to  hold  their  meetingsIF ;  according  to 
the  practice  of  their  Gaulish  brethren,  who,  as  we  learn  from 
Caesar,  used  to  assemble  annually  on  the  confines  of  the  Car- 
nutes,  in  a  place  accounted  to  be  the  centre  of  all 'Gaul,  and 
there,  consulting  upon  all  controversies  referred  to  them,  pro- 
nounced decrees  which  were  universally  obeyed.** 

In  the  peculiar  sacredness  attached  to  the  Hill  of  Usneach, 
as  the  common  limit  of  the  five  provinces,  we  recognize  that 
early  form  of  idolatry  which  arose  out  of  the  natural  respect 

The  term  SttjX^/,  here  used,  though  iu  its  most  general  acceptation  signi- 
fying a  pillar  or  ohelisk,  was  sometimes  also  employed  to  denote  a  rock.— 
See  Donnegan,  who  refcris  for  tliis  meaning  of  the  word  to  Hcrmsterh.  ad  Lu- 
cian,  1.  p.  367. 

*  The  worship  of  mountains,  hills,  and  rivers,  among  the  ancient  Britons, 

is  mentioned  by  Gildas,  "montes  ipsos  aut  colles  aut  fluvios quibus 

divinus  honor  a  cscco  tunc  populo  cumulabatur,"  c.  2. ;  and  that  such  super- 
stition was  not  peculiar  to  the  Celtic  tribes,  appears  from  the  laws  which, 
down  to  the  eleventh  century,  prohibited  the  Anglo-Saxons  from  worshipping 
the  tree,  the  rock,  the  stream,  or  fountain.— See  Palgrave's  Rise  and  Pro- 
gress of  the  Englisk  Co7nmonwealth,j)at:t  i.  chap.  4. 

t  li  certo  anni  tempore,  in  finibus  Carnutum,  quae  regio  totius  Gallise  me- 
dia habetur,  considunt  in  loco  consecrato.  Hie  omnes  undique  qui  contro- 
versias  habent  conveniunt,  eorumque  judiciis  decretlsque  parent. — De  Bella 
Oallico,  lib.  vi.  cap.  13. 

X  Diodor.  lib.  v.  §  Strab.  lib.  ix 

II  In  lapide  quodam  conveniunt  apud  mediam  juxta  castrum  de  Kyllari,  qui 
locus  et  umbilicus  Hibernite  dicitur  quasi  in  medio  et  medullitio  terras  po- 
situs.— Cap.  4. 

TT "  The  Dynast,  or  Chieftain,  had  certain  judges  under  him,  called  Brehons, 
who,  at  stated  times,  sat  in  the  open  air,  generally  upon  some  hill,  on  a 
bench  raised  with  green  sods,  where  they  distributed  justice  to  the  neigh- 
bours."—JFarc.  Antiquities  of  Ireland,  chap.  xi. 

**  CKsar,  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 


44  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


I 

■acecffl 
encej 


paid  to  boundaries  and  frontiers,  and  which  may  be  tracei 
throughout  the  ancient  superstitions  of  most  countries.  Hence' 
mountains,  those  natural  barriers  between  contiguous  nations, 
first  came  to  be  regarded  with  reverence ;  and  it  has  been 
shown*,  that  the  Holy  Mountains  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  Asi- 
atics, and  Egyptians,  were  all  of  them  situated  upon  marches 
or  frontier  grounds.  When  artificial  limits  or  Termini  f  came 
to  be  introduced,  the  adoration  that  had  long  been  paid  to  the 
mountain,  was  extended  also  to  the  rude  stone,  detaclied  from 
its  mass,  which  performed  conventionally  the  same  important 
function.  From  this  reverence  attached  to  boundaries,  the 
place  chosen  by  the  Gaulish  Druids,  for  their  meetings,  derived 
likewise  its  claim  to  sacrcdness,  being  on  the  confines  of  that 
tribe  of  Celts,  called  the  Carnutes. 

Whenever  an  Irisli  King,  or  Chief,  was  to  be  inaugurated  on 
one  of  their  Hills,  it  was  usual  to  place  him  upon  a  particular 
stone|,  whereon  was  imprinted  the  form  of  their  first  Chief- 
tain's foot,  and  there  proffer  to  him  an  oath  to  preserve  the  cus- 
toms of  the  country.  "  There  was  then,"  says  Spenser,  who  had 
himself  witnessed  tlie  election  of  an  Irish  Dynast  in  this  man- 
ner, "a  wand  delivered  to  him  by  the  proper  officers,  with 
which  in  his  hand,  descending  from  the  stone,  he  turned  him- 
self round,  thrice  forward  and  thrice  backward."^  In  an  ac- 
count of  the  ceremonies  performed  at  the  initiation  of  the 

*  Dulaure,  DCS  CuUcs  aiUericurs  a  Vldolalrie,  chap.  8.  Among  the  Holy 
Mountains  of  Greece,  this  writer  has  eiiuiaerated  nearly  a  dozen,  all  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Olympus,  and  all  situalei  upon  frontiers.    Chap.  ix. 

tSuch  was  the  homage  paid  to  this  D';ity  of  landmarks  and  bound;) np:-;, 
that  when  room  was  required  for  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympiuo  m  tli>>, 
Capitol,  the  seat  of  every  god,  except  Terminus,  was  removed. 

t  The  practice  of  seating  the  new  King  upon  a  stone,  at  his  initiation, 
was  the  practice  in  many  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  The  Dukes  of  Carin- 
thia  were  thus  inaugurated  (Joan.  Boem.  de  Morib.  Gentium,  lib.  iii.)  The 
monarchs  of  Sweden  sat  upon  a  stone  placed  in  the  centre  of  twelve  lesser 
ones  (Olaus  Magn.  de  Ritu  gent,  septent.  i.  c.  18.),  and  in  a  similar  kind  of 
circle  the  Kings  of  Denmark  were  crowned.— (Hist,  de  Danemarck.)  In 
reference  to  the  enormous  weight  of  the  stones  composing  this  last-men- 
tioned monument.  Mallet  livelily  remarks,'!*"  que  de  tout  temps  la  super- 
stition a  imagine  qu'on  ne  pouvait  adorer  la  divinite  qu'en  faisant  pour  elle 
des  tours  de  force." 

§The  practice  of  turning  round  the  body,  in  religious  and  other  solemni- 
ties, was  performed  differently  by  different  nations  of  antiquity ;  and  Pliny, 
in  stating  that  the  Romans  turned  from  the  left  to  the  right,  or  sunwise, 
adds,  that  the  Gauls  thought  it  more  religious  to  turn  from  tlie  right  to  the 
left.  lib.  xxviii.  c.  5.  See  the  commentators  on  this  passage  of  Pliny,  who 
trace  the  enjoiinnent  of  the  practice  in  question  to  no  less  authorities  than 
Pythagoras  and  Nuina.  The  Celts,  according  to  Posidonius  (apud  Athen. 
lib.  iv.),  turned  always  to  the  right  in  worshipping. — T.ous  ^tovg  wpoaKvvovaiv 
e-m  ra  6t^ia  <rrp£<poixEvot.  This  practice,  under  the  name  of  Dcasoil,  or 
motion  according  to  the  course  of  the  sun,  is  still  retained  in  tiic  Scottish 
isles. — See  Jamieson's  Scollish  Dictionarij,  Toland's  Hiaivri/  of  the  Druids, 
Borlasc's  Cornwall,  &c. 


SACRED    HILLS.  45 

Kings  of  Tirconnel,  we  are  told  that,  in  presenting  the  new 
King  with  the  wand,  which  was  perfectly  white  and  straight, 
the  Chief  who  officiated  used  this  form  of  words, — "  Receive, 
O  King !  the  auspicious  badge  of  your  authority,  and  remem- 
ber to  imitate,  in  your  conduct,  the  straightness  and  whiteness 
of  this  wand." 

So  solemn  and  awful  were  the  feelings  associated  with  their 
Sacred  Hills  by  the  Irish,  that  one  of  their  poets,  in  singing 
the  praises  of  St.  Patrick,  mentions  particularly,  as  a  proof  of 
his  zeal  and  courage,  that  he  "  preached  of  God  in  the  Hills 
and  by  the  Sacred  Founts."*  With  such  tenacity,  too,  was 
transmitted  from  age  to  age  the  popular  reverence  for  all  such 
judgments  as  were  issued  from  those  high  places,  that  so  late 
as  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  the  same  traditional  feeling  pre- 
vailed ;  and  we  have  it  on  high  authority  that,  at  that  period, 
"  the  English  laws  were  not  observed  eight  days,  whereas  the 
laws  passed  by  the  Irish  in  their  hills  they  kept  firm  and  sta- 
ble, without  breaking  them  for  any  fee  or  reward."f 

Such  of  these  Sacred  Mounts  as  are  artificial  have  in  gen- 
eral been  called  either  Barrows  or  Cairns,  according  as  the 
materials  of  which  they  are  composed  may  have  been  earth  or 
stones ;  and  both  kinds,  though  frequently  appropriated  to  the 
various  purposes  just  mentioned,  were,  it  is  plain,  in  their  ori- 
ginal destination,  tombs, — such  as  are  to  be  found  in  every 
region  of  the  habitable  world,  and  preceded,  as  monuments  of 
the  dead,  even  the  Pyramids  themselves.^  Among  the  Greeks, 
it  was  not  unusual  to  erect  a  pillar  upon  the  summit  of  the 
barrow,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  tumulus  of  Elpenor,  described 
in  the  twelfth  book  of  the  Odyssey,  and  still  more  memorably 
in  that  of  Achilles,  on  the  Sigean  promontory,  which  is  said 
still  to  bear  traces  of  the  sepulchral  pillar,  that  once  surmount- 
ed it.     A  similar  form  of  memorial  is  mentioned  by  antiqua- 

'=  Metrical  Life  of  St.  Patrick,  attributed  to  his  disciple  Fiech ;  but  evi- 
dently of  a  somewhat  later  period. 

j- "  A  Breviate  of  the  getting  of  Ireland,  and  of  the  Decay  of  the  same," 
by  Baron  Finglas,  an  Irishman,  made  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  in 
Ireland,  by  Henry  VIII.,  and  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench.— 
Ware's  Writers. 

\  After  comparing  the  primeval  Celtic  mound  with  the  pyramidal  heaps 
of  the  East,  Clarke  says,  "  In  fact,  the  Scythian  Mound,  the  Tartar  Tepe, 
the  Teutonic  Barrow,  and  the  Celtic  Cairn,  do  all  of  them  preserve  a  monu- 
mental form,  which  was  more  anciently  in  use  than  that  of  the  Pyramid, 
because  it  is  less  artificial ;  and  a  proof  of  its  alleged  antiquity  may  be 
deduced  from  the  mere  circumstance  of  its  association  with  the  Pyramids  of 
Egypt,  even  if  the  testimony  of  Herodotus  were  less  explicit  as  to  the 
remote  period  of  its  existence  among  northern  nations."— Trarie/s,  vol.  v. 
chap.  5.  In  the  Travels  of  Professor  Pallas  may  be  found  an  account  of  the 
immense  variety  of  these  sepulchral  heaps,  some  of  earth,  some  of  stones, 
which  he  saw  in  traversing  the  regions  inhabited  by  the  Cossacks,  Tartars, 
and  Mongul  tribes. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

ries  as  existing  in  different  parts  of  Ireland"*",  and  the  great 
barrow  at  New  Grange  is  said  to  have  originally  had  a  stone 
of  considerable  bulk  upon  its  summit.  Of  the  dedication  of 
the  Cairns  and  Barrows  to  the  Sunf,  there  are  abundant  proofs 
throughout  antiquity ;  and  as  from  Grian,  the  Celtic  name  of 
the  sun,  Apollo  evidently  derived  his  title  of  Grynaeus,  so  to 
Carne,  the  term,  in  Celtic,  for  these  tumuli,  his  title  Carneus 
is  no  less  manifestly  to  be  traced. 

The  veneration  of  particular  groves  and  trees  was  another 
of  those  natural  abuses  of  worship,  into  which  a  great  mass  of 
mankind,  in  the  first  ages,  lapsed ;  and,  as  happens  in  all  such 
corruptions  of  religion,  a  practice  innocent  and  even  holy  in 
its  origin  soon  degenerated  into  a  system  of  the  darkest  super- 
stition. It  was  in  a  grove  planted  by  himself,  that  Abraham 
"  called  on  the  everlasting  God,"  and  Gideon's  offering  under 
the  oak  was  approved  by  tlie  same  heavenly  Voice,  which  yet 
doomed  the  groves  of  Baal  that  stood  in  its  neighbourhood  to 
destruction.]:  In  the  reign  of  Ahab,  the  period  when  Idolatry 
was  in  its  most  flourishing  state,  we  find  that,  besides  the  priests 
of  Baal,  or  the  sun,  tliere  existed  also  a  distinct  order  of  Priest- 
hood, who,  from  the  peculiar  worship  they  presided  over,  were 
called  Prophets  of  the  Groves.^  In  the  religious  system  of  the 
Celts  is  found  a  combination  of  both  these  forms  of  supersti- 
tion, and  there  exist  in  Ireland,  to  this  day,  in  the  old  tradi- 
tions, and  the  names  of  places,  full  as  many  and  striking  ves- 
tiges of  the  worship  of  trees  as  of  that  of  the  smi.  Tliough  at 
present  so  scantily  clothed  with  wood,  one  of  the  earliest  ver- 
nacular names,  this  country  Fiodha  Inis,  or  the  Woody  Island, 
proves  that  the  materials  for  tree  worship  were  not,  in  former 

*  See  Qough's  Camden,  vol.  iii. ;  King's  MunimeiUa  Jintiqua,  book  i.  This 
latter  writer,  in  speaking  of  New  Grange,  says,  that  it  "  so  completely  cor- 
responds with  the  accounts  we  have  of  the  Asiatic  Barrows  of  Patroclus 
and  of  Halyattes,  and  with  the  description  of  the  Tartarian  barrows  of  the 
Scythian  kings,  that  in  reading  an  account  of  one,  we  even  seem  to  be 
reading  an  account  of  the  other."— Book  i.  chap.  6.  Rejecting  as  vague  and 
unsatisfactory  the  grounds  on  which  New  Grange  and  other  such  monu- 
ments are  attributed  to  the  Danes,  this  well-informed  antiquary  conchides, 
"  We  may,  therefore,  from  such  strong  resemblance  between  primaeval  and 
nearly  patriarchal  customs  in  the  East,  and  those  aboriginal  works  in  Ire- 
land and  Britain  in  the  West,  much  more  naturally  infer  that  these  sepul- 
chral barrows  are  almost  without  exception  the  works  of  the  first  race  of 
settlers  in  these  countries." — lb. 

t  Silius  Italicus  represents  Apollo  as  delighting  in  the  Cairn-fires : — 
"  Q,uum  pius  Arcitenens  incensis  gaudet  acervis." — Lib.  v.  177. 

Among  the  diflferent  sorts  of  Cairns  in  Cornwall,  there  is  one  which  they 
call  Karn  Leskyg,  or  the  Karn  of  Burnings. 

1  Gen.  xxi.  33.— Judges  vi.  23—28. 

§"  The  Prophets  of  Baal  four  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  Prophets  of  the 
Groves,  four  hundred,"—!  Kings,  xviii.  19, 


SACRED    GROVES.  47 

ages,  wanting  on  her  shores.  The  name  of  the  Vodii,  an 
ancient  tribe  inhabiting  the  southern  coast  of  the  county  of 
Cork,  signifies  dwellers  in  a  woody  country*,  and  Youghall, 
formerly  Ochill,  is  said  to  have  been  similarly  derived.  It 
appears  that  in  general  the  old  names  of  places,  whether  hills 
or  plains,  are  found  to  be  words  implying  forests,  groves,  or 
trees.  The  poet  Spenser  has  commemorated  the  Ireland  of 
his  day  as  abounding  in  shade  and  foliagef,  and  we  collect 
from  Stanihurst  that  the  natives  had  been  accused  of  living 
savagely  in  the  dark  depths  of  their  forests.  It  is,  indeed, 
alleged,  by  competent  authority|,  to  have  been  made  evident 
from  an  examination  of  the  soil,  that,  at  no  very  remote  period, 
the  country  must  have  been  abundantly  wooded. 

The  oak,  the  statue  of  the  Celtic  Jove^,  was  here,  as  in  all 
other  countries,  selected  for  peculiar  consecration ;  and  the  Plain 
of  Oaks,  the  Tree  of  the  Field  of  Adorationll,  under  which  the 
Dalcassian  Chiefs  were  inaugurated,  and  the  Sacred  Oak  of 
Kildare,  sliow  how  early  and  long  this  particular  branch  of  the 
primitive  worship  prevailed. 

*  Quasi  Britannice  dicas  Sylvesfres,  sive,  apud  sylvas  degentes. — Baxter. 
Olossar.  Antiquitat.  Brit. — SmitKs  County  of  Cork. 

t  Cantos  of  Mutability  ;  where,  in  describing:  Ireland,  he  speaks  of  "  woods 
and  forests  which  therein  abound."  In  his  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland, 
also,  speaking  more  particularly  of  the  country  between  Dublin  and  Wex- 
ford, he  says :—"  Though  the  whole  track  of  the  country  be  mountainous 
and  woody,  yet  there  are  many  goodly  valleys,"  &c.  Campion  likewise 
asserts,  that  "the  island  was  covered  with  forests  ;  yet,  so  rapid  must  have 
been  their  destruction,  that,  not  much  more  than  a  century  after  Spenser 
and  Campion  wrote,  we  find  Sir  Henry  Piers,  in  his  Chorograpliical  Descrip- 
tion of  the  County  of  Meath,  complaining  of  the  want  of  timber  of  bulk, 
"  wherewith  it  was  anciently  well  stored  ;"  and  recommending  to  parlia- 
ment a  speedy  provision  for  "  planting  and  raising  all  sorts  of  forest  trees." 
— Collectan.  vol.  i. 

I  "  I  never  saw  one  hundred  contiguous  acres  in  Ireland  in, which  tliere 
were  not  evident  signs  that  they  were  once  wood,  oc  at  least  very  well 
wooded.  Trees,  and  the  roots  of  "trees,  of  the  largest  size,  are  dug  up  in  all 
the  bogs  ;  and,  in  the  cultivated  counties,  the  stumps  of  trees  destroyed  show 
that  the  destruciitj.i  \\-a<  not  been  of  very  ancient  date."— j^WAwr  Young, 
Tour  in  Ireland. 

§  Aya\[xa  Se  Aiog  KcXtikov  v^iih^  0(>vg.~Max.  Tyr.  Serm.  38. 

WMas^h-JIdhair.—'-''  A  plain,  or  field  of  adoration  or  worship,  where  an 
open  temple,  consi.sliug  of  a  circle  of  tall  straight  stone  pillars,  with  a  very 
large  flat  stone,  called  cromleac,  serving  for  an  altar,  was  constructed  by  the 
Druids, . . .  several  plains  of  this  name,  Magh-Adhair,  were  known  in  Ire- 
land, particularly  one  in  the  country  now  called  the  County  of  Clare,  where 
the  kings  of  the  O'Brien  race  were  inaugurated."— O'Brien's  Irish  Diction- 
ary. It  was  under  a  remarkable  tree  on  this  plain  that  the  ceremony  of 
initiating  the  Dalcassiv.n  kings  took  place.  {O'Brien,  in  voce  Magh-bile.)  In 
the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  for  the  year  981,  there  is  an  account  of  the 
destruction  of  this  Sacred  Tree. 

For  the  origin  of  four  of  the  great  Dalcassian  families,  viz.  the  O'Briens, 
the  Mac  Mahons,  the  O'Kennedys,  and  the  Macnamaras,  see  Rer.  Hibemicar. 
Script,  prol.  1.  13:^. 


48  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


I 


By  some  antiquaries,  who  affect  to  distinguish  between  th( 
Celtic  and  Gothic  customs  in  Ireland,  the  mode  of  inaugurat- 
ing the  Dalcassian  chiefs  is  alleged  to  have  been  derived  from 
the  first  inhabitants  or  Celts;  while,*  on  the  other  hand,  the  use 
of  the  Lia  Fail,  or  Stone  of  Destiny,  in  the  ceremony,  was  in- 
troduced, they  say,  by  the  later,  or  Scythic  colonies.  In  this 
latter  branch  of  the  opinion,  they  are  borne  out  by  the  ancient 
traditions  of  the  country,  which  trace  to  the  Danaans,  a  Scythic 
or  Gothic  tribe,  the  first  importation  of  the  custom.  That  the 
worship  of  stones,  however,  out  of  which  this  ceremony  sprung, 
was  a  superstition  common  not  only  to  both  of  these  races,  bul 
to  al]  the  first  tribes  of  mankind,  is  a  fact  admitted  by  most  in- 
quirers on  the  subject.  The  same  may  be  affirmed  of  every 
branch  of  the  old  primitive  superstition  ;  and,  therefore,  to  at- 
tempt to  draw  any  definite  or  satisfactory  line  of  distinction, 
between  the  respective  forms  of  idolatry  of  the  two  great  Eu- 
ropean races,  is  a  speculation  that  must  be  disconcerted  and 
baffled  at  every  step.  A  well-known  dogmatist  in  Irish  anti- 
quities, desirous  to  account,  by  some  other  than  the  obvious 
causes,  for  that  close  resemblance  which  he  cannot  deny  to  exist 
between  the  Celtic  and  Gothic  superstitions,  has  had  recourse  to 
the  hypothesis,  that  a  coalition  between  the  two  rituals  must, 
at  some  comparatively  late  period,  have  taken  place.*  But  a 
natural  view  of  the  subject  would,  assuredly,  have  led  to  the 
very  reverse  of  this  conclusion,  sliowing  that,  originally,  the 
forms  of  idolatry  observed  by  both  races  were  the  same,  and 
that  any  difference  observable,  at  a  later  period,  has  been  the 
natural  result  of  time  and  circumstances. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  DRUIDS,  OR  MAGI  OF  THE  IRISH. 

The  religious  system  of  the  Pagan  Irish  having  been  thus 
shown,  as  regards  both  its  ceremonies  and  its  objects,  to  have 
been,  in  many  respects,  peculiar  to  themselves,  it  remains  to 
be  considered  whether  the  order  of  Priesthood  which  presided 
over  their  religion  did  not  also,  in  many  points,  differ  trom  the 
Priests  of  Britain  and  of  Gaul.  Speaking  generally,  the  term 
Druidism  applies  to  the  whole  of  that  mixed  system  of  hierurgy, 
consisting  partly  of  patriarchal,  and  partly  of  idolatrous  obser- 
vances, which  the  first  inhabitants  of  Europe  are  known  to 

*  •'  The  Druids,  when  known  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  had  united  the 
Celtic  and  Scythic  rituals,  and  exercised  their  functions  both  in  groves  and 
caves.'''— Ledwich,  Antiquities  of  Ireland,  p.  49. 


DRUIDISM.  49 

have  brought  with  them  in  their  migration  from  the  East ;  and 
the  cause  of  the  differences  observable  in  the  rituals  of  the 
three  countries  where  alone  that  worship  can  be  traced,  is  to  be 
sought  for  as  well  in  the  local  circumstances  peculiar  to  each, 
as  in  those  relations  towards  other  countries  in  which,  either 
by  commerce  or  position,  they  were  placed.  Thus,  while  to 
her  early  connexion  with  the  Phoenicians  the  Sacred  Island 
was  doubtless  indebted  for  the  varieties  of  worship  wafted  to 
her  secluded  shores,  the  adoption  by  the  Gallic  Druids  of  the 
comparatively  modern  Gods  of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  rather  of 
their  own  original  divinities  under  other  names,  may,  together 
with  the  science  and  the  learning  they  were  found  in  possession 
of  by  the  Romans,  be  all  traced  to  the  intercourse  held  by  them, 
for  at  least  five  hundred  years  before,  with  the  colony  of  Pho- 
csBan  Greeks  established  at  Marseilles. 

Of  all  that  relates  to  the  Druids  of  Gaul,  their  rites,  doc- 
trines, and  discipline,  we  have  received  ample  and  probably 
highly  coloured  statements  from  the  Romans.  Our  knowledge 
of  the  Irish  Magi,  or  Druids,  is  derived  partly  from  the  early 
Lives  of  St.  Patrick,  affording  brief  but  clear  glimpses  of  the 
dark  fabric  which  he  came  to  overturn,  and  partly  from  those 
ancient  records  of  the  country,  founded  upon  others,  as  we  shall 
see,  still  more  ancient,  and  so  reaching  back  to  times  when 
Druidism  was  still  in  force.  With  the  state  or  system  of  this 
order,  in  Britain,  there  are  no  such  means  of  becoming  acquaint- 
ed. It  is  a  common  error,  indeed,  to  adduce  as  authority  re- 
specting the  British  Druids,  the  language  of  writers  who  profess 
to  speak  only  of  the  Druidical  priesthood  of  Gaul ;  a  confusion 
calculated  to  convey  an  unjust  impression  of  both  these  bodies  ; 
as  the  latter, — even  without  taking  into  consideration  their 
alleged  conferences  with  Pythagoras,  which  may  be  reasonably 
called  in  question, — had  access,  it  is  known,  through  the  Mas- 
silian  Greeks,  to  such  sources  of  science  and  literature,  as  were 
manifestly  beyond  the  reach  of  their  secluded  brethren  of 
Britain.  Even  of  the  Gaulish  Druids,  however,  the  description 
transmitted  by  the  Romans  is  such  as,  from  its  vagueness  alone, 
might  be  fairly  suspected  of  exaggeration ;  and  the  indefinite 
outline  they  left  has  been  since  dilated  and  filled  up  by  others, 
tOl  there  is  scarcely  a  department  of  human  knowledge  with 
which  these  Druids  are  not  represented  to  have  been  conver- 
sant. Nor  is  this  embellished  description  restricted  merely  to 
the  Gaulish  priesthood,  but  given  also  as  a  faithful  picture  of 
the  Druids  of  Britain  ;  though,  among  all  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man writers  who  have  treated  of  the  subject,  there  is  not  one— 
with  a  slight  exception,  perhaps,  as  regards  Pliny, — who  has 
not  limited  his  remarks  solely  and  professedly  to  Gaul. 

Vol.  I.  5 


50  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

The  little  notice  taken  by  the  Romans  of  the  state  of  thi 
worship  among  the  Britons,  is  another  point  which  appear 
worthy  of  consideration.  Instead  of  being  general  throughou 
the  country,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  traditioi 
mentioned  by  Caesar,  the  existence  of  Druidism  appears  tc 
have  been  confined  to  a  few  particular  spots ;  and  the  chief 
seat  of  its  strength  and  magnificence  lay  in  the  region  nearer 
to  the  shores  of  Ireland,  North  Wales.  It  was  there  alone,  aj 
is  manifest  from  their  own  accounts,  and  from  the  awe  anc 
terror  with  which,  it  is  said,  the  novelty  of  the  sight  thei 
affected  them*,  that  tlie  Romans  ever  encountered  any  Druide 
during  their  whole  stay  in  Britain;  nor  did  Csesar,  who  dwells 
so  particularly  upon  the  Druids  of  Gaul,  and  even  mentions  thi 
prevalent  notion  that  they  had  originated  in  Britain,  ever  hint 
that,  while  in  that  country,  he  had  either  met  with  any  oi'  theii 
order,  or  been  able  to  collect  any  information  concerning  theii 
tenets  or  rites.  The  existence  still,  in  various  parts  of  Eng^ 
land,  of  what  are  generally  called  druidical  monuments,  is  in- 
sufficient to  prove  that  Druidism  had  ever  flourished  in  those 
places  ;  such  monuments  having  been  common  to  all  the  first 
races  of  Europef,  and  though  forming  a  part  of  the  ritual  of 
the  Druids,  by  no  means  necessarily  implying  that  it  had  ex- 
isted where  they  are  found.  In  the  region  of  Spain  occupied 
anciently  by  the  Turditani,  the  most  learned  of  all  the  Celtic 
tribes,  there  is  to  be  found  a  greater  number  of  what  are  called 
Druidical  remains  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  Peninsula. { 
Yet,  of  the  existence  of  an  order  of  Druids  among  that  people,: 
neither  Strabo  nor  any  other  authority  makes  mention. 

The  only  grounds  that  exist  for  extending  and  appropriating 
to  the  British  Druids  all  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers 
have  said  solely  of  those  of  Gaul,  are  to  be  found  in  the  single, 
but  doubtless  important,  passage  wherein  it  is  asserted  by  Csb- 
sarj,  that  Druidism  had  first  originated  in  Britain,  and  was 
from  thence  derived  by  the  Gauls.  Presuming  on  the  truth  ot 
this  assertion,  it  has  been  further  concluded,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  all  the  features  of  the  parent  were  exactly  similar 
to  those  attributed  to  the  offspring ;  and  upon  this  arbitrary 
assumption  have  all  the  accounts,  so  fully  and  confidently  given, 
of  tlie  rites,  doctrines,  and  learning  of  the  British  Druids  been 

*  Novitate  aspectus  perculere  miUtes.— Tacit,  ^nnal.  lib.  xiv.  c.  30. 

t  For  proofs  of  the  adoption  of  circular  stone  temples,  and  other  such  mo- 
numents, by  the  Gothic  nations,  .see  Ledwich's  Antiquities  {Pagan  State  of 
Ireland,  and  its  Remains),  and  Pinkerton's  Enquiry,  &c.  part  iii.  chap.  12. 

\  History  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  Cab.  Cyclo.  Introduction. 

6  Disciplina  in  Britannia  reperta,  alque  inde  in  Galliam  iranslata  esse 
efistimatur.— De  Bell.  Oall.  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 


ORIGIN    OF    DRUIDISM.  51 

founded.  With  respect  to  the  statement,  however,  of  Cresar, 
an  obvious  solution  suggests  itself,  arising  naturally  out  of  all 
that  has  been  advanced  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  amply  suf- 
ficient, as  I  think,  to  account  for  the  curious  tradition  which 
he  mentions.  We  have  seen,  by  the  strong,  though  scattered, 
lights  of  evidence,  which  have  been  brought  to  concentre  upon 
this  point,  at  what  an  early  period  Ireland  attracted  the  notice 
of  that  people,  who  were,  in  those  times,  the  great  carriers, 
not  only  of  colonies  and  commerce,  but  also  of  shrines  and 
divinities,  to  all  quarters  of  the  world.  So  remote,  indeed,  is 
the  date  of  her  first  emergence  into  celebrity,  that  at  a  time 
when  the  Carthaginians  knew  of  Albion  but  the  name,  the 
renown  of  lerne  as  a  seat  of  holiness  had  already  become  an- 
cient ;  her  devotion  to  the  form  of  worship  which  had  been 
transported,  perhaps  from  Samothrace,  to  her  shores,  having 
won  for  her,  as  we  have  seen,  the  designation  of  the  Sacred 
Island.  Those  who  look  back  to  the  prominent  station  then 
held  by  her,  as  a  sort  of  emporium  of  idolatry,  will  not  deem 
it  unlikely  that  a  new  religion  may  have  originated  on  her 
shores ;  and  that  it  was  to  her  alone  the  prevalent  tradition  of 
the  times  of  Caesar  must  have  attributed  the  reputation  of 
having  first  moulded  the  common  creed  of  all  the  Celts  into 
that  peculiar  form  which  has  become  memorable  under  the 
appellation  of  Druid  ism. 

Whatever  changes  this  form  may  have  undergone  in  its 
adoption  by  Gaul  and  Britain,  were  the  natural  result  of  local 
circumstances,  and  the  particular  genius  of  each  people ;  while 
the  greater  infusion  of  orientalism  into  the  theology  of  the 
Irish,  arose  doubtless  from  the  longer  continuance  of  their 
intercourse  with  the  East.  How  large  a  portion  of  the  reli- 
gious customs  of  Persia  were  adopted  by  the  Magi  or  Druids  of 
Ireland,  has  already  been  amply  shown ;  and  to  these  latter 
Pliny*  doubtless  refers,  under  the  same  mistake  as  Caesar, 
when,  in  speaking  of  the  Magi  of  different  countries,  he  re- 
marks of  the  ceremonies  practised  in  Britain,  that  they  were 
of  such  a  nature  as  to  render  it  probable  that  they  were  the 
original  of  those  of  the  Persians.  The  favourite  tenet  as  well 
of  Druidism  as  of  Magism,  the  transmigration  of  the  soul  f , 

*  Britannia  hodieque  earn  attonite  celebrat  tantis  cseremoniis,  ut  dedisse 
Persis  videri  possit. — Plin.  J^at.  Hist.  lib.  xxx.  c.  4.  On  the  intimation  con- 
tained in  this  passage,  Whitaker  has  founded  a  supposition,  that,  at  some 
period,  which  he  calls  the  Divine  Age,  the  doctrine  of  the  Western  Druids 
may  have  penetrated  so  far  East ;  "  thus  solving,"  he  says,  "  Pliny's  conjec- 
ture of  the  Persians  receiving  it  from  them,  which  must  have  been  in  times 
comparatively  to  which  the  foundation  of  Ronie  is  hardly  not  a  modern  in- 
cident."—Ce^dc  Vocabulary. 

t  The  prevalence,  among  them,  of  a  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  the 
60ul,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fable  respecting  Ruan,  one  of  the  colony  that 


52  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

which  the  Druids  of  Gaul  are  thought  to  have  derived  from 
the  Massilian  Greeks,  might  have  reached  them,  through  Ire- 
land, from  some  part  of  the  East,  at  a  much  earlier  period ; 
this  favourite  doctrine  of  all  Oriental  theologues,  from  the 
Brachmans  of  India  to  the  priests  of  Egypt,  being  found  in- 
culcated also  through  the  medium  of  some  of  the  traditions  of 
the  ancient  Irish.  The  use,  both  by  Pliny  and  Csesar,  of  the 
name  Britain  instead  of  Ireland  argues  but  little  against  the 
presumption  that  the  latter  was  the  country  really  designed. 
The  frequent  employment  of  the  plural,  BritannisB*,  to  denote 
the  whole  of  the  British  Isles,  was,  in  itself,  by  no  means  un- 
likely to  lead  to  such  a  confusion.  Besides,  so  ignorant  were 
the  Roman  scholars  respecting  the  geography  of  these  regions, 
that  it  is  not  impossible  they  may  have  supposed  Britain  and 
Ireland  to  be  one  and  the  same  country ;  seeing  that,  so  late 
as  the  period  when  Agricola  took  the  command  of  the  pro- 
vince, they  had  not  yet  ascertained  whether  Britannia  was  an 
island  or  a  continent.! 

To  his  statement,  that  Britain  was  thought  to  have  origin- 
ated the  institution  of  Druidism,  Ceesar  adds,  that  those  who 
were  desirous  of  studying  diligently  its  doctrines,  repaired  in 
general  to  that  country  for  the  purpose.]:  If,  as  the  reasons  I 
have  above  adduced  render  by  no  means  improbable,  the  school 
resorted  to  by  these  students  was  really  Ireland,  the  religious 
pre-eminence  thus  enjoyed  by  her,  in  those  pagan  days,  was  a 
sort  of  type  of  her  social  position  many  centuries  after,  when 
again  she  shone  forth  as  the  Holy  Island  of  the  West ;  and 
again  it  was  a  common  occurrence,  as  in  those  Druidical  times, 
to  hear  said  of  a  student  in  divinity,  that  he  was  "  gone  to  pur- 
sue a  course  of  sacred  instruction  in  Hibernia."§ 

landed  in  Ireland,  under  Partholan,  some  two  or  three  centuries  after  the 
Flood.  Of  this  ancient  personage,  it  was  believed  that  he  continued  to  live, 
through  a  long  series  of  transmigrations,  till  so  late  as  the  time  of  St.  Patrick, 
when,  having  resumed  the  human  shape,  he  communicated  to  the  saint  all 
he  knew  of  the  early  history  of  the  island,  and  was  then  baptised  and  died. 
— J^icholson's  Library,  chap.  2. — licrum  Hibern.  Script.  Ep.  Nunc. 

*  Thus  Catullus :— "  Hunc  Galliaj  timent,  hunc  timent  Britaniae."— Carwi.  27. 

\  Hanc  Oram  novissimi  maris  tunc  primum  Romana  classis  circumvecta 
insulam  esse  Britanniam  aifirmavit.— Tacit,  jlgric.  10.  Plutarch,  in  his  Life 
of  Caesar,  asserts  that  the  very  existence  of  such  a  place  as  Britain  had  been 
doubted. 

X  Et  nunc  qui  diligentius  earn  rem  cognoscere  volunt  plerumque  illo  dis- 
cendi  causa  proficiscuntur.— Z)e  Bell.  Oall.  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 

§  "  St.  Patrick's  disciples  in  Ireland  were  such  great  proficients  in  the 
Christian  religion,  that,  in  the  age  following,  Ireland  was  termed  Sanctorum 

Patria,  i.  e.  the  Country  of  Saints The  Saxons,  in  that  age,  flocked 

hither  as  to  the  great  mart  of  learning  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  we  find 
this  so  often  in  our  writers,—'  Amondatus  est  ad  disciplinam  in  Hibernia,' 
such  a  one  was  sent  over  into  Ireland  to  be  educated.^'' — Camden. 


ETYMOLOGY  OF  THE  TERM  DRUID.         53 

While,  from  all  that  has  been  here  advanced,  it  may  be  as- 
sumed as  not  improbable  that  Ireland  was  the  true  source  of 
this  ancient  creed  of  the  West,  there  is  yet  another  point  to 
be  noticed,  confirmatory  of  this  opinion,  which  is,  that  the 
term  Druid,  concerning  whose  origin  so  much  doubt  has  exist- 
ed, is  to  be  found  genuinely,  and  without  any  of  the  usual  strain- 
ing of  etymology,  in  the  ancient  Irish  language.  The  supposed 
derivation  of  the  term  from  Drus,  the  Greek  word  for  an  oak, 
has  long  been  rejected  as  idle*  ;  the  Greek  language,  though 
flowing  early  from  the  same  Asiatic  source,  being  far  more 
likely  to  have  borrowed  from  than  contributed  to  that  great 
mother  of  most  of  the  European  tongues,  the  Celtic.  It  is, 
however,  unnecessary  to  go  any  farther  for  the  origin  of  the 
name  than  to  the  Irish  language  itself,  in  which  the  word 
Draoid  is  found,  signifying  a  cunning  man,  or  Magus,  and  im- 
plying so  fully  all  that  is  denoted  by  the  latter  designation  as 
to  have  been  used  as  an  equivalent  for  it  in  an  Irish  version  of 
the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  where,  instead  of  "  the  wise  men, 
or  Magi,  came  from  the  East,"  it  is  rendered,  "  the  Druids 
came  fi-om  the  East ;"  and,  in  like  manner,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Exod.  vii.  11.,  tlio  words  "  magicians  of  Egypt"  are  made 
"  Druids  of  Egypt."! 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ANTIQUITY   OF   THE     IRISH    LANGUAGE, — LEARNING   OF   THE   IllISH   MAGI 
OH   DRUIDS. 

Our  accounts  of  the  learning  of  the  Irish  Druids,  though 
far  more  definite  and  satisfactory  than  any  that  relate  directly 
to  the  Druids  of  Britain,  are  still  but  imperfect  and  vague. 
Before  we  enter,  however,  on  this  topic,  a  few  remarks  on  a 
subject  intimately  connected  with  it,  the  ancient  language  of 
the  country,  will  not  be  deemed  an  unnecessary  preliminary. 
Abundant  and  various  as  are  the  monuments  to  which  Ireland 
can  point,  as  mute  evidences  of  her  antiquity,  she  boasts  a  yet 
more  striking  proof  in  the  living  language  of  her  people, — in 
that  most  genuine,  if  not  only  existing,  dialect  of  the  oldest 
of  all  European  tongues, — the  tongue  which,  whatever  name 
it  may  be  called  by,  according  to  the  various  and  vague  theories 

*  For  the  various  derivations  of  the  term  Druid  that  have  been  suggested 
by  different  writers,  see  Frickius  de  Druid,  pars  i.  cap.  i. 

t  Matt.  ii.  1.  The  Irish  version  is  thus  given  by  Toland :— Feuch  tanga- 
dar  Draoithe  o  naird  shoir  go  Hirulasem:— and  the  passage  in  Exod.  vii. 
11.  is  thus  rendered  :—Anos  Draoithe  na  H6gipte  dor  innedursanfos  arau 
modligccadna  le  nandroigheachtuibh. 

5* 


54  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

respecting  it,  whether  Japhetan,  Cimmerian,  Pelasgic,  or 
Celtic,  is  accounted  most  generally  to  have  been  the  earliest 
brought  from  the  East,  by  the  Noachidse,  and  accordingly  to 
have  been  "  the  vehicle  of  the  first  knowledge  that  dawned 
upon  Europe."*  In  the  still  written  and  spoken  dialect  of  this 
primaeval  language  f  we  possess  a  monument  of  the  high  anti- 
quity of  the  people  to  whom  it  belongs,  which  no  cavil  can 
reach,  nor  any  doubts  disturb. 

According  to  the  view,  indeed,  of  some  learned  philologers, 
the  very  imperfections  attributed  to  the  Irish  language, — the 
predominance  in  it  of  gutturals,  and  the  incompleteness  of  its 
alphabet, — are  both  but  additional  and  convincing  proofs,  as 
well  of  its  directly  Eastern  origin,  as  of  its  remote  antiquity  ; 
the  tongues  of  the  East,  before  the  introduction  of  aspirates, 
having  abounded,  as  it  appears,  with  gutturals  I ,  and  the 
alphabet  derived  from  tlie  Phcenicians  by  the  Greeks  having 
had  but  the  same  limited  number  of  letters  which  compose  the 
Irish.  5  That  the  original  Cadmeian  number  was  no  more  than 
sixteen  is  the  opinion,  with  but  few  exceptions,  of  the  whole 
learned  world ;  and  that  such  exactly  is  the  number  of  the 
genuine  Irish  alphabet  has  been  proved  satisfactorily  by  the 

*  Enquiries  concerning  the  First  Inhabitants,  Languages,  &c.  of  Europe, 
by  Mr.  Wise. 

t  According  to  the  learned  but  fanciful  Lazius,  the  Irish  language  abounds 
with  Hebrew  words,  and  had  its  origin  in  the  remotest  ages  of  the  world. 
{De.Ocntium  Migration ibus.)  A  Frencli  writer.  Marcel,  also,  in  speaking  of 
the  Irish  idiom  or  dialect,  says,  "On  pent  dire  avec  quelque  probability  qu'il 
doit  remonter  a  une  6poque'beaucoup  plus  roculee  que  les  idinmes  de  la  plu- 
part  des  autres  contrees  de  I'Europe."  This  writer,  who  was  Directeur  de 
I'Emprimerie  Imperiale,  under  Napoleon,  published  an  Irish  alphabet  from 
types  belonging  to  the  Propaganda  of  Rome,  which  were  sent,  by  the  order 
of  Napoleon,  to  Paris.  Prefixed  to  his  publication  are  some  remarks  on  the, 
grammatical  structure  of  the  Irish  language,  which  he  thus  concludes:— 
"  Par  cette  marchc  conjugative  elle  se  rapproche  de  la  siniplicite  des  langues 
anciennes  et  orientales.  Elle  s'en  rapproche  encore  par  les  lettres  serviles 
ou  auxiliares,  les  affixes  et  les  pr6(ixes,  qu'elle  emploie  comme  la  langue 
H6braique."  With  the  types  of  the  Propaganda,  the  Irish  Catechism  of  Mol- 
loy,  called  Lucerna  Fidclium,  was  printed. 

X  "  La  lingua  Punica  certamente  venne  pronunziata  anticamente  colla 
gorgia,  e  ne  resta  provato  in  quel  piccol  monumento  che  la  scena  prima  di 
Plauto  ci  ha  lasciato  col  carattere  Letino."— G.  P.  ^gius  de  Solandis,  quoted 
in  Vallancey's  Essay  on  the  Antiquity  of  the  Irish  Language.  "  In  the 
Oriental  languages  gutturals  abounded ;  these  by  degrees  softened  into  mere 
aspirates,"  &c. — Rees's  Cyclopfedia,  art.  Gothic  Language.  In  tracing  the 
Eastern  origin  of  the  Celtic,  Dr.  Pritchard  remarks,  that  "words  derived  by 
the  western  from  the  eastern  languages  are  changed  in  a  peculiar  Way.  The 
most  general  of  these  alterations  is  the  substituting  of  guttural  for  sibilant 
letters."  May  not  such  words,  however,  have  been  derived  previously  to  the 
introduction  of  aspirates  and  sibilants  ? 

§  "  Now,  if  this  alphabet  (the  Irish)  had  not  been  borrowed  at  least  before 
the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  when  Palamedes  made  the  first  addition  to  it, 
we  can  hardly  conceive  it  should  be  so  simple.  Or,  if  the  Druids  should  cull 
it,  it  would  be  remarkable  that  they  should  hit  precisely  on  the  letters  of 
Cadmus,  and  reject  none  but  the  later  additions." — Smith's  Gaelic  Antiquities, 
chap.  4. 


ANCIENT    IRISH    ALPHABET.  55 

reverend  and  learned  librarian  of  Stowe.*  Thus,  while  all  the 
more  recent  and  mixed  forms  of  language  adopted  the  addi- 
tional letters  of  the  Greeks,  the  Irish  alone  f  continued  to 
adhere  to  the  original  number — the  same  number  no  doubt 
which  Herodotus  saw  graven  on  the  tripods  in  the  temple  of 
Apollo  at  Thebes — the  same  number  which  the  people  of 
Attica  adhered  to  with  such  constancy,  that  it  became  a  cus- 
tomary phrase  or  proverb,  among  the  Greeks  to  say  of  any  thing 
very  ancient,  that  it  was  "  in  Attic  letters."|  To  so  charac- 
teristic an  extent  did  the  Irish  people  imitate  this  fidelity,  that 
even  the  introduction  among  them  of  the  Roman  alphabet  by 
St.  Patrick  did  not  tempt  them  into  any  innovation  upon  their 
own.  On  the  contrary,  so  wedded  were  they  to  their  own  let- 
ters, that,  even  in  writing  Latin  words,  they  would  never 
admit  any  Roman  character  that  was  not  to  be  found  in  their 
primitive  alphabet,  but  employed  two  or  more  of  their  own 
ancient  characters  to  represent  the  same  organic  sound.  § 
It  will  be  perceived,  from  the  foregoing  remarks,  that  I  con- 

Huddlestone,  the  editor  of  Toland,  algo  remarks  upon  this  subject,—"  If 
the  Irish  had  culled  or  selected  their  alpiiabet  from  that  of  the  Romans,  how, 
or  by  what  miracle,  could  they  have  hit  on  the  identical  letters  which  Cad- 
mus brought  from  Phoenicia,  and  rejected  all  the  rest  ?  Had  they  thrown 
sixteen  dice  sixteen  times,  and  turned  up  the  same  number  every  time,  it 
would  not  have  been  so  marvellous  as  this." 

*  Detractis  itaque  quinque  dipthongis,  et  consonantibus  supra  memoratis, 
qui  nullibi  in  lingua  Hibernica  extant,  non  remanent  plures  quam  sexdecim 
simplicia  elementa,  quot  fuisse  antiquissimas  Cadmeias,  PJinius,  et  Nonnus, 
et  antiquissimi  scriptores  una  voce  testatum  reliqiiere. — O'Connor,  Jlnnal. 
Inisfall.  Dc  Inscript.  Ogham. 

t  "  If  they  had  letters  first  from  St.  Patrick,  would  they  have  deviated  from 
the  forms  of  the  letters  ?  Would  they  have  altered  the  order  ?  Would  they 
have  sunk  seven  (eight)  letters  ?  For  in  every  country  they  have  rather  in- 
creased than  diminished  the  number  of  letters,  except  those  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Iri.=5h,  which  are  in  statxi  quo  to  this  day." — ParsoJi's  Remains  ofJapket. 

X  In  rff^rence  to  this  proverb,  Lilius  Geraldus,  quoting  the  assertion  of 
some  aiu'iont  writer  that  treaties  against  the  barbarians  were  ratified  in 
Ionic,  not  in  Attic,  letters,  adds,  "quasi,ut  puto,  dicat  Uteris  recentioribus." 
— Lil.  Qirald.  de  Poetis. 

§  "Thus  in  all  words  begun  or  ended  by'x,  instead  of  writing  that  simple 
character,  they  never  chose  to  represent  it  otherwise  than  by  employing  two 
of  the  Roman  characters,  viz.  gs  or  cs;  a  trouble  they  certainly  might  have 
saved  themselves,  at  least  in  writing  the  Latin,  had  they  not  rejected  it  as 
an  exotic  character,  and  not  existing  in  their  alphabet."— Z,i«craiwre  of  the 
Irifih  after  Christianity,  Collectan.  No.  5. 

This  mode  of  expressing  the  letter  X  was  anciently  practised  by  the  Ro- 
mans themselves  ;  but  had  been  disused  ages  before  the  time  when  it  could 
be  supposed  to  have  been  communicated  to  them  by  the  Irish.  Another 
curious  point,  respecting  the  Irish  alphabet,  is  thus  noticed  by  the  author  of 
Oalic  Antiquities : — "They  could  much  easier  have  spared  one  of  Cadmus's 
letters  than  some  of  those  which  have  been  afterv^^ards  joined  to  it.  Tho 
Greek  x>  ^o*"  example,  expresses  a  round  so  common  in  the  Galic,  and  so  im- 
perfectly expressed  by  the  combined  powers  of  c  (or  k)  and  //,  that  they  could 
not  possibly  have  omitted  it,  had  It  been  in  the  alphabet  when  they  adopted 
the  rest  of  the  letters." 


56 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


ceive  the  Irish  to  have  been  early  acquainted  with  the  use 
letters ;  and  such  appears  to  me,  I  own,  the  conclusion 
which — attended,  though  it  be,  with  some  difficulties — a  fair 
inquiry  into  this  long-agitated  question  ought  to  lead.  In 
asserting  that  letters  were  anciently  known  to  this  people,  it  is 
by  no  means  implied  that  the  knowledge  extended  beyond  the 
learned  or  Druidical  class — the  diffiision  of  letters  among  the 
community  at  large  being,  in  all  countries,  one  of  the  latest 
results  of  civilized  life.  It  is  most  probable,  too,  that,  among 
the  Irish,  the  art  was  still  in  a  rude  and  primitive  state  ;  their 
materials  having  been,  as  we  are  told,  tablets  formed  of  the 
\vood  of  the  beech,  upon  which  they  wrote  with  an  iron  pen- 
cil, or  stylus,  and  from  whence  the  letters  themselves  were 
called,  originally,  Fcadha,  or  Woods.  With  implements  deno- 
ting so  early  a  stage  of  the  art — a  stage  corresponding  to  that 
in  which  the  Romans  wrote  their  laws  upon  wood — the  uses  to 
which  writing  could  have  been  applied  were  of  course  limited 
and  simple,  seldom  extending,  perhaps,  beyond  the  task  of 
transmitting  those  annals  and  genealogies  which,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe,  as  we  shall  see,  were  kept  regularly  from,  at 
least,  the  first  century  of  our  era. 

By  the  doubters  of  Irish  antiquities  the  time  of  the  apostle- 
ship  of  St.  Patrick  has  been  the  epoch  generally  assigned  for 
the  first  introduction  of  letters  into  that  country.  This  hy- 
pothesis, however,  has  been  compelled  to  give  way  to  the  high 
authority  of  Mr.  Astle,  by  whom  inscribed  monuments  of  stone 
were  discovered  in  Ireland,  which  prove  the  Irish,  as  he  says, 
"  to  have  had  letters  before  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick  in  that 
kingdom."*  It  is  true,  this  eminent  antiquary  also  asserts, 
that  "  none  of  these  inscribed  monuments  are  so  ancient  as  to 
prove  that  the  Irish  were  possessed  of  letters  before  the  Ro- 
mans had  intercourse  with  the  Britons;"  but  the  entire  sur- 
render by  him  of  the  plausible  and  long-maintained  notion,  that 
to  St.  Patrick  the  Irish  were  indebted  for  their  first  knowledge 
of  this  gift,  leaves  no  other  probable  channel  through  which, 
in  later  times,  it  could  have  reached  them ;  and  accordingly 
sends  us  back  to  seek  its  origin  in  those  remote  ages,  towards 
which  the  traditions  of  the  people  themselves  invariably  point, 
for  its  source.  Of  any  communication  held  by  the  Romans 
with  Ireland,  there  is  not  the  least  trace  or  record ;  and  the 
notion  that,  at  a  period  when  the  light  of  History  had  found  its 
way  into  these  regions,  such  an  event  as  the  introduction  of 
letters  into  a  newly  discovered  island  should  have  been  passed 
unrecorded  by  either  the  dispensers  or  the  receivers  of  the 
boon,  seems  altogether  improbable. 

^      *  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writing,  chap.  v. 


ANCIENT    IRISH    ALPHABET.  57 

Besides  the  alphabet  they  used  for  ordinary  occasions,  the 
ancient  Irish  were  in  possession  also,  we  are  told,  of  a  secret 
mode  of  writing,  such  as  is  known  to  have  been  used  for  sacred 
purposes  among  the  hierarchies  of  the  East.  And  here,  again, 
we  find  their  pretensions  borne  out  by  such  apt  concurrence 
with  antiquity,  as  could  hardly  have  been  concerted  in  even 
the  most  subtle  scheme  of  vanity  and  imposture.  It  has  been 
already  mentioned,  that  the  first  Irish  letters  were,  from  the 
material  on  which  they  had  been  first  inscribed,  called  Feadha, 
or  Woods, — in  the  same  manner  as,  according  to  a  learned 
Hebraist,  every  word  denoting  books  in  the  Pentateuch  has 
direct  reference  to  the  material,  whether  wood  or  stone,  of 
which  they  were  composed.*  With  a  similar  and  no  less 
striking  coincidence,  the  name  Ogam,  or  Ogma,  applied  tra- 
ditionally to  the  occult  forms  of  writing  among  the  Irish,  and 
of  whose  meaning  the  Irish  themselves  seem,  till  of  late,  to 
have  been  ignorant  f,  is  found  to  be  a  primitive  Celtic  terra, 
signifying  the  Secrets  of  Letters  | ;  and,  to  confirm  still  farther 
this  meaning,  it  is  known  that  the  Gaulish  god  of  Eloquence 
was,  on  account  of  the  connexion  of  his  art  with  letters,  called, 
by  his  worshippers,  Ogmius,^ 

We  have  seen  that,  among  the  inscribed  monitments  of  stone, 
of  which  there  are  so  many  throughout  Ireland,  the  learned 
Astle  found  proofs  to  satisfy  him  that  the  Irish  had  letters  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick.  Could  some  of  the  inscriptions, 
said  to  be  in  the  Ogham  character,  be  once  satisfactorily  au- 
thenticated, they  would  place  beyond  a  doubt  the  claims  of  the 
natives  to  an  ancient  form  of  alphabet  peculiarly  their  own. 
It  is  possible  that,  in  a  few  of  these  instances,  the  lines  taken 
for  letters  may  have  been  no  more  than  the  natural  marks,  or 
furrows,  in  the  stone ;  as  was  frequently  the  case  with  those 
lines,  supposed  to  be  mystic  characters,  upon  the  Bcetyli,  or 
Charmed  Stones  of  the  ancients.  ||    The  professed  date,  too,  of 

*  "  II  n'y  a  pas  une  expression  dans  Moyse  on  il  parlo  des  livres  qui  ne 
puisse  s'expliquer  dans  le  sens  de  ces  tables  de  pierre  et  de  bois."— CaZmet. 
The  wood  of  the  beech  has  been  the  material  used  for  the  first  attempts  at 
writing  in  most  countries.  "  Non  displicet  a  fago  arbore  derivari  quaa  Ger- 
iTianis  adhuc  hodie  die  Buche,  Suecis  Boken,  Danis  Bog  dicitur."  See  J.  P. 
Murray,  Jlnimadvcrs.  in  Literat.  Runic.  Commentat.  Soc.  Reg.  Scient.  Gotting. 
torn,  ii.,  where  a  number  of  other  curious  particulars  on  this  subject  may  be 
found. 

t  The  word  is  not  to  be  found  in  O'Brien's  Irish  Dictionary,  and  is,  I 
believe,  omitted,  also,  in  most  of  the  others. 

X  Probe  noverim  vocabulum  Oga,  Ogum,  vel  Ogma,  Celte  significasse 
secreta  literarum,  vel  literas  'i\}»ns.—Kcysler,  Aniiqq.  Septent. 

§  Lucian.  Hercul.  Gall. 

11 "  Some  of  the  BiEtyls,"  says  M.  Falconnet,  "  avoient  des  lignes  gravies 
Bur  leur  surface.    Damascius  les  appelle  lettres  pour  rendre  la  chose  plus 


m 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


the  Ogham  inscription,  on  the  mountain  of  Callan,  of  whici 
many  and  various  versions  have  been  suggested,  has  been  call- 
ed in  question  by  a  learned  antiquary  seldom  slow  to  believe 
in  the  evidence  of  his  country's  early  civilization.*  Neither, 
does  any  discovery  seem  to  have  been  yet  made  of  the  tomb  of 
Fiacra,  a  hero  commemorated  in  the  ancient  Book  of  Bally-; 
mote,  who  received  his  death-wound  in  the  battle  of  Caonry,' 
A.  D.  380,  and  was  buried  in  Meath,  with  his  name  inscribed, 
in  the  Ogham  character,  on  his  tomb.f  There  is,  however, 
an  account  given  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy,  on  the  authority  of  two  most  intelligent  and  trust- 
worthy witnesses  |,  of  the  discovery  of  a  stone  inscribed  with 
undoubted  Ogham  letters,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  tlie  town 
of  Armagh,  and  on  a  spot  resembling,  in  many  of  its  features, 
the  remarkable  tumulus  at  New  G range. ^ 

In  addition  to  the  consistency  of  this  hierogrammatic  mode 
of  writing,  with  all  else  that  is  know^n  of  the  antiquities  of  the 
country,  the  traditions  relating  to  its  use  in  sepulchral  inscrip- 
tions may  be  traced  far  into  past  times ;  and  among  other  an- 
cient writings  in  which  allusion  to  it  occurs,  may  be  mentioned 
the  tale  of  the  Children  of  Usneach,  "one  of  the  Three  Tragic 
Stories  of  Eirin,  in  which  the  niterment  of  the  young  lovers  is 
thus  druidically  represented: — "After  this  song,  Deirdri  flung 
lierself  upon  the  Naisi  in  the  grave,  and  died  forthwith ;  and 
stones  were  laid  over  their  monumental  heap,  their  Ogham 
name  was  inscribed,  and  their  dirge  of  lamentation  was  sung."|l 

mysterieuse :  effect ivement,  ces  lin^nes  que  je  orois  etre  precisement  ce 
qu'Orph6e  appelle  rides,  forment  una  apparence  de  caracteres." — Dissert,  sur 
Ics  Bcctyls. 

*  Dr.  O'Connor,  de  inscript.  Og\vxv[\.—Annal.  Inisfal. 

t  Vallancey,  Irish  Grammar,  Pref.  1%— O'Connor,  Ep.  Jfunc.  33.  and  Annal. 
Inisfall.  136. 

J  Doctor  Brown  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Young,  both  follows  of  Trin.  Coll. 
Dublin.  In  a  letter  from  Doctor  Brown  (quoted  in  a  paper,  vol.  viii.  of  the 
Irish  Transactions),  he  is  represented  to  have  said,  that  "  notwithstanding 
all  that  has  been  written,  by  very  learned  men,  of  the  Ogham  character, 
and  some  modern  testimonies  respecting  its  existence,  he  was  extremely 
incredulous  as  to  any  monuments  being  actually  extant  on  which  it  could  bo 
found,  and  disposed  to  think  that  literary  enthusiasm  had  mistaken  natural 
furrows  on  the  stone  for  engraved  cliaracters :  but,  having  satisfied  himself 
that  he  was  in  error,  he  thought  it  a  duty  to  the  Academy  to  mention  a 
monument  of  the  kind  tliat  had  come  under  his  knowledge." 

§  "  They  observed  enough  to  impress  them  with  a  strong  persuasion  that 
the  hill  is  excavated,  the  entrance  being  very  like  that  at  New  Grange. 
Another  resemblance  is  in  the  surrounding  circle  of  upright  stones,  which 
(together  with  the  want  of  a  ditch  or  fosse)  always  distinguishes  such 
tumuli." — Dr.  Brown's  ..Account. 

Ij  For  a  prose  version  of  this  ancient  Irish  story,  which  furnished  the 
foundation  of  Macpherson's  Darthula,  see  Transactions  of  the  Gaelic  Society 
of  Dublin. 


ANCIENT  IRISH  LANGUAGE.  59 

I  have  already  mentioned,  as  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  an 
original  alphabet  in  the  country  before  the  introduction  of  that 
of  the  Romans,  the  characteristic  obstinacy  with  which  they 
adhered  to  their  own  limited  number  of  letters, — insomuch  as 
that,  even  in  writing-  Latin  words,  they  took  the  unnecessary 
trouble  of  supplying,  by  combinations  from  their  own  original 
characters,  the  place  of  those  additional  letters  of  the  Romans 
which  they  regarded  as  exotic.  It  may  here  be  added,  that 
the  peculiar  order  of  their  native  alphabet,  in  which  b,  l,  r,  n, 
stand  as  the  initial  letters,  would  afford  such  an  instance  of 
downright  caprice  and  dictation,  in  mere  beginners  with  these 
elements,  as  may  be  pronounced  utterly,  incredible. 

Another  argument,  equally  strong,  in  favour  of  their  claims 
to  an  original  ancient  alphabet,  may  be  drawn  from  the  use, 
in  Irish  orthography,  of  what  are  called  quiescent  consonants, 
which,  though  always  preserved  in  writing,  are  omitted  in  pro- 
nunciation. If  this  characteristic  of  the  language  be  really 
ancient,  and  not  rather  one  of  those  corruptions  or  innovations 
which  the  bardic  rhymers  are  acc»ed  of  introducing  for  the 
sake  of  the  euphony  or  the  rhythm  * ,  there  could  be  no  more 
convincing  proof  of  tlie  existence  of  letters,  from  a  very  early 
period ;  as  by  no  other  means,  it  is  plain,  than  by  a  written 
standard  could  the  memory  of  letters,  left  unpronounced  in 
speaking,  have  been  preserved. 

The  state  of  parity  in  which,  considering  its  great  primaeval 
antiquity,  the  dialect  of  the  Celtic  spoken  in  Ireland  was  found 
existing,  wlien  first  that  country  attracted  the  notice  of  modern 
Europe,  appears  in  itself  a  sufficient  proof  that  the  use  of  let- 
ters had  long  been  known  to  her  people.  It  seems  hardly  pos- 
sible, indeed,  to  conceive  that,  without  the  aid  of  a  written 
standard,  this  language  could  have  retained  to  such  a  degree 
its  original  structure  and  forms,  as  even  to  serve  as  a  guide  and 
auxiliary  to  the  philologer  in  his  researches  into  the  affinities 
and  gradual  formation  of  other  more  recent  tongues.  That 
there  may  be  inherent  in  an  original  language  like  the  Irish  a 
self-conservative  principle,  it  is  most  easy  to  believe ;  but  we 
yet  perceive,  in  the  instance  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotlandf, 

*  See,  for  the  modes  by  which  "  the  bards,  or  versificators,  were  accustomed 
to  stretch  out  words  by  multiplyiii;?  the  syllables  according  to  the  exigency 
of  their  rhymes,"  O'Brien's  Irish  Diet.  {Remarks  on  the  Letter  A.)  One  of 
those  metliods  was  "  by  throwing  between  two  vowels  an  adventitious  con- 
sonant, to  stretch  and  divide  the  two  vowels  with  two  different  syllables." 

t  "It  is  well  known  that  the  Erse  dialect  of  the  Gaelic  was  never  written 
nor  printed  until  Mr.  Macfarlane,  late  minister  of  Killinvir,  in  Argyleshire, 
published,  in  1754,  a  translation  of  Baxter's  '  Call  to  the  Unconverted.'  "— 
Shaw's  Enquinj,  Sec.  The  author  of  the  "Claims  of  Ossian,"  also,  asserts 
that,  "  till  within  these  thirty  years,  the  Caledonians  had  never  possessed  so 
much  as  the  skeleton  of  a  national  grammar." 


60  HISTOKY    OF    IRELAND. 

how  much  the  dialect  of  the  Irish  spoken  by  that  people  has, 
from  the  want  or  disuse  of  a  written  standard,  become,  in  the 
course  of  time,  changed  and  corrupted ;  and  still  more  remark- 
ably in  the  instance  of  Ireland  itself,  where,  notwithstanding 
its  acknowledged  possession  of  the  art  of  writing  from  the 
time  of  the  mission  of  St.  Patrick,  so  great  a  change  has  the 
language  undergone  during  that  interval,  not  only  as  spoken 
but  as  written,  that  there  are  still  extant  several  fragments,  of 
ancient  laws  and  poems,  whose  obsolete  idiom  defies  the  skill 
of  even  the  most  practised  Irish  scholars  to  interpret  them.* 

When  so  signal  a  change  has  been  operated  in  the  Irish  lan- 
guage, during  this  period,  in  spite  of  the  standard  maintained, 
through  a  considerable  portion  of  it,  by  a  regular  succession  of 
public  annalists,  as  well  as  by  the  writings  of  native  leg^end- 
aries  and  bards,  it  seems  fair  to  conclude,  that,  if  left  without 
any  such  safeguards,  and  in  the  state  of  barbarism  their  absence 
would  imply,  the  general  speech  of  the  people  must,  in  time, 
have  degenerated  into  a  mere  vague  jargon,  retaining  but  little 
trace  of  those  features  of  relationship  towards  some  of  the  most 
polished  tongues  of  Europe,  which  induced  the  great  Leibnitz 
to  recommend  a  diligent  study  of  the  Irish  language  as  highly 
conducive,  in  his  opinion,  to  the  knowledge  and  promotion  of 
Celtic  literature. t 

With  respect  to  the  medium  through  which  the  Irish  may 
be  supposed  to  have  early  received  the  knowledge  of  letters,  it 
might  be  sufficient  to  point' to  Gaul  as  the  not  improbable  region 
from  whence  the  British,  as  well  as  the  Irish  Druids,  may  have 
been  furnished  with  the  gift.  That  the  use  of  letters  was 
known  to  the  Gauls,  the  whole  context  of  Csesar's  remarks  on 
the  subject  proves.  The  single  sentence,  indeed,  where  he 
states  that  the  Druids  forbade  their  doctrines  to  be  committed 
to  writing,  fully  suffices  to  prove  this  art  to  have  been  already 
introduced  into  the  country  ;  tlie  very  circumstance  of  its  being 
prohibited  clearly  implying  its  pre-existence.     For  all  the  or- 

*  Lingua  enim  Hibernica  qua  incolffi  Hiberniae  et  Albaniae  nunc  vulgo 
utuntur  in  pluribus  diversa  est  ab  anliqua  ;  et  cum  id  in  Codicibus  scriptis 
pateat,  quis  nisi  fatuis  studiis  abreptus  non  percipit,  diveraitatem  longe 
majorem  necessario  oriri  debere  in  Jingua  non  scripta.—iZer.  Hibern.  Script. 
Ep.  nunc. 

Tlie  learned  Colgan,  in  speaking  of  some  poems  ascribed  to  Dalian,  an 
Irish  bishop  of  the  sixth  century,  declares  them  to  have  been  written  in  so 
ancient  a  style  as  to  be  wholly  unintelligible,  even  to  many  who  were  versed 
in  the  ancient  idiom  of  the  country:—"  A  multis  alioquin  in  veteri  patrio 
idiomate  versatis  nequeunt  penetrari."  (duoted  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  Prol.  ii. 
Ixxiv.) 

t  Postremo,  ad  perficiendam,  vel  certe  valdfi  promovenddm  literaturam 
Celticam,  diligentius  linguffi  Hibernicse  studium  adjungendum  censeo. — 
Collectan.  Etymol.,\o\.  i. 


LEARNING  OF  THE  IRISH  DRUIDS.  61 

dinary  purposes  of  life,  they  made  use,  adds  Ccesar,  of  the  Greek 
letters ;  and  these  they  derived,  it  is  supposed,  from  the  Greek 
colonies  established  at  Marseilles.  We  have  already  seen,  and 
also  on  Caisar's  authority,  that  to  Britain,  the  cradle  and  school 
of  Druidism,  such  Gaulish  students  as  wished  to  perfect  them- 
selves in  its  mysteries,  resorted.  Without  insisting  any  farther 
on  the  highly  probable  supposition,  that  the  Magi  or  Druids  of 
Ireland  were,  in  reality,  those  instructors  to  whom  the  Gauls 
sent  their  youth  to  be  initiated  in  the  higher  mysteries,  and 
whose  rites  Pliny  describes  as  so  singularly  resembling  those 
of  the  Persians,  there  would  be  at  least  no  violent  degree  of 
assumption  in  supposing  such  an  intercourse  to  have  early  ex- 
isted between  the  three  countries,  as  might  have  been  the  means 
of  supplying  the  Druids,  both  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  with  that 
knowledge  of  letters  so  long  possessed  by  their  brethren  of 
Gaul. 

But  there  is  still  an  earlier  and,  as  far  as  Ireland  is  concern- 
ed, more  obvious  channel,  through  which  this  acquisition  may 
have  been  derived  by  her  people.  Those  who  have  accompa- 
nied the  course  of  inquiry  pursued  in  the  foregoing  pages  may 
have  seen  reason  to  believe  that  the  Irish,  from  their  evident 
connexion  both  with  Phoenician  and  Carthaginian  sources,  were 
far  more  early  and  more  directly,  than  even  the  Gauls  them- 
selves, in  the  way  of  receiving  a  gift  so  familiar  to  most  of 
their  Eastern  visiters,  and  which,  there  are  good  grounds  for 
supposing,  was  in  those  days  much  more  extensively  circulated, 
among  at  least  the  learned  or  sacred  classes  of  all  countries, 
than  it  has  been  the  fashion  of  modern  hypothesis  to  admit. 
How  wholly  improbable  It  is,  that  the  Irish  should  not  have 
been  furnished  with  this  important  knowledge  from  the  same 
nation  that  supplied,  in  a  great  part,  their  creed  and  their  ritual, 
the  names  of  tlieir  gods  and  festivals,  of  their  sacred  hills  and 
promontories,  has  already,  perhaps,  been  more  than  sufficiently 
urged.  In  those  parts  of  Spain  with  which  the  Irish  were 
most  acquainted,  the  Phoenicians  had,  from  the  time  of  Moses, 
established  themselves* ;  and,  accordingly,  letters  are  known 
to  have  flourished  in  those  regions  before  the  Romans  were 
even  in  existence,  as  Romans  themselves  have  acknowledged.! 

*  ToDj  ^e  <l>oiviKas  Xtyo)  jirjvvTag.  Kai  Trjg  iBrjpias  Kai  rrjg  AiBvrjs  rriv  apiarr]u 
ovToi  KUTcax^ov  npo  ttjs  tiXiklus  Ofxijpov.—Strab.  lib.  iii.  However  exagger- 
ated may  have  been  Strabo's  hearsay  account  of  the  Turditani,  who,  he  tells 
us,  were  said  to  have  been  in  posserision  of  poeins,  laws  in  verse,  and  other 
written  monuments  of  antiquity,  for  the  space  of  six  hundred  years,  such  an 
extent  of  assertion  would  hardly  have  been  without  some  foundation  in 
fact.    See,  for  the  passage,  his  Third  Book. 

t  In  iis  etiam  regionibus,  unde  Scotorum  ori^inis  cognitio  eruenda  est, 
nempe  in  occidentalibus  Iberia;  partibus,  a  Phcenicibus,  ab  ipso  Moysis  a;vo, 

Vol.  I.  6 


62 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


That  an  island  situated  in  the  very  neighbourhood  of  si 
sources  of  civilization,  and  so  long  connected,  as  it  appears, 
with  the  people  who  were  the  great  dispensers  of  the  know- 
ledge of  letters  in  those  days,  should  alone  be  excluded  from 
an  advantage  enjoyed  by  all  their  other  allies  and  dependencies, 
is  a  supposition  far  too  improbable  to  be  entertained.*  When 
we  add  to  all  this,  that,  at  the  time  when  the  Irish  first  broke 
forth,  as  scholars  and  missionaries,  upon  Europe,  they  were: 
found  in  possession  of  modes  of  writing  peculiar  to  themselves, 
of  elements  acknowledged  to  have  no  prototypes  in  any  known 
language!,  and  differing  in  name,  number,  and  order  from  those 
of  every  other  existing  alphabet,  such  a  coincidence  with  all 
that  we  know  of  the  early  fortunes  of  the  country,  as  well  aa 
with  all  that  her  own  traditions  lay  claim  to,  forms  a  case  as- 
suredly in  favour  of  those  claims  which  is  not  to  be  easily  con- 
troverted ;  while  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  but  little  more 
than  the  vague  doubts  and  cavils  of  a  no  very  liberal  school 
of  scepticism  opposed  to  all  this  evidence. 

It  is  thought  that  the  Gauls,  who,  in  the  time  of  Csesar, 
made  use  of  the  Greek  letters  derived  from  the  colony  of  Mar- 
seilles, had  possessed  originally  an  alphabet  of  their  own,  which 
was  then  forgotten  or  superseded  by  that  of  the  Greeks]; ;  and 
a  similar  fate  seems  to  have  attended  the  ancient  alphabet  of 
the  Irish,  as  the  letters  adopted  by  them,  after  the  mission  of 
St.  Patrick,  though  differing  widely,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
the  Roman,  in  number,  order,  and  power,  bear  a  considerable 
degree  of  resemblance  to  them  in  shape.  This,  combined  witli 
the  pains  St.  Patrick  is  known  to  have  taken  to  introduce 
among  them  the  Roman  characters,  warrants  the  conclusion, 
that  his  efforts  had  thus  far  succeeded,  and  that,  though  unable 
to  persuade  them  to  adopt  the  additional  letters,  or  to  depart 
from  the  order  of  their  own  ancient  Bethluisnon,  he  prevailed 
in  inducing  them  to  attempt  those  rude  imitations  of  the  Ro- 
man  characters  which   their  present  alphabet  exhibits,  and 


habitatis,  litcras  ante  Romanorum  tempora  viguisse,  ipsi  Romani  testantur. 
— Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  Ep.  J^unc. 

*  The  same  argument  has  been  made  use  of  by  Astle  against  Wise,  who 
held  that  the  Egyptians  were  unacquainted  with  the  use  of  letters.  "  As 
they  had  commercial  intercourse,"  says  this  learned  writer,  "  with  their 
neighbours  the  Phoenicians,  they  probably  had  the  knowledge  of  letters." 

t  "  It  follows,  therefore,  that,  as  there  was  no  prototype  to  copy  them 
(the  Irish  alphabets)  from,  they  must  be  original." — Harris  on  Ware, 
chap.  iii. 

I  "  The  Gauls,  in  particular,  had  evidently  lost  the  use  of  their  original 
alphabet."— JfAiiaAer,  Hist,  of  Manchester,  book  i.  chap.  10.  sect.  6. 


ANCIENT    IRISH    ALrilABET.  63 

which  are  acknowledged  to  have  been,  not  long  after,  adopted 
from  them  by  the  Saxons.* 

From  the  near  resemblance  which  some  Irish  words,  imply- 
ing a  knowledge  of  letters,  such  as  a  book,  to  read,  to  write, 
&c.,  bear  to  the  Latin  terms  for  the  same  objects  and  opera- 
tions, it  has  been  hastily  concluded  that  the  Romans  must  have 
first  introduced  these  words,  and  accordingly  that  the  art  to 
which  they  refer  must  have  been  also  previously  unknown. f 
But  besides  that  to  seek  the  source  of  Celtic  words  in  the 
Latin,  is  wholly  to  reverse  the  natural  course  of  derivation,  it 
might  just  as  reasonably,  on  the  same  grounds,  be  concluded, 
that  the  Irish  were  indebted  to  the  Romans  for  their  first  know- 
ledge of  the  natural  relationships  of  father  and  mother,  since 
the  words  employed  in  the  Latin  and  Irish  to  express  these 
relations  are  no  less  evidently  of  a  cognate  origin.  | 

An  ingenious  Englishman,  General  Vallancey,'accustomed  to 
follow  with  far  more  zeal  than  judgment  that  clue  to  Ireland's 
antiquities  which  their  manifest  connexion  with  Phcenician 
sources  supplies,  has  gone  so  far,  it  is  well  known,  as  to  per- 
suade himself  that  in  certain  speeches,  professing  to  be  Punic, 
which  are  put  by  Plautus  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  drama- 
tic personages,  he  could  discover  genuine  Irish.  The  casual 
coincidences  he  has  pointed  out  between  several  Irish  words 
and  the  corrupt  jargon,  as  it  is  most  probably,  which  Plautus 
produces  as  Punic,  are  certainly  curious  and  imposing;  and 
more  than  one  writer  of  high  authority,  on  such  subjects,  have 
lent  their  sanction  to  the  supposed  discovery.  ^     The  learned 

*  Anglo-Saxones  rationem  formandi  literas  accepisse  ab  Hibernis,  cum 
eodem  plane  characteusi  fuerit  qui  hodie  Hibernis  est  in  usn.— Camden. 

t  This  was  first  suggested,  I  think,  by  Innes,  Crit.  Essaij,  &c.  vol.  ii.  sect. 
2.;  and  Mr.  Turner,  in  his  valuable  history,  has  condescended  to  follow  in 
the  same  track.  Innes  adduces  a  similar  reason  for  supposing  that  the  an- 
cient Irish  were  unacquainted  with  the  art  of  numbering.  See  on  this  sub- 
ject Dr.  Pritchard's  satisfactory  work,  The  Eastern  Origin  of  the  Celtic  JVa- 
tions ;  particularly  chap.  iii.  where  he  adduces  proofs  of  a  common  origin  in 
the  vocabulary  of  the  Celtic  and  other  Indo-European  languages. 

I  In  writing  these  sentences,  I  was  little  aware  that  the  case  which  I  here 
but  contemplated  had  actually  occurred ;  and  that,  already,  on  the  grounds 
above  stated,  it  had  been  sapiently  concluded  that  the  ordinary  relationship 
of  father,  mother,  brother,  &c.,  were  unknown  to  the  ancient  Irish.—"  Close 
as  the  relation  was,"  says  Mr.  Wood,  "  between  a  son  and  his  parents, 
brothers,  and  sisters,  there  are  no  words  in  the  Celtic  language  distinct  from 
those  which  appear  to  be  derivations  from  the  Latin  language,  and  express 
this  consanguinity.  Thus  athair,  a  father,  seems  to  be  derived  from  pater; 
matkair,  a  mother,  from  mater;  bralhair,  a  brother,  from  f rater ;  siur,  a  sister, 
from  soror.  This  opinion,  which  was  formed  from  the  affinity  observable 
between  the  derivations  and  the  Latin,  is  strengthened  not  only  by  the 
general  mode  of  this  uncultivated  family  (the  Celts),  but  by  the  promiscuous 
intercourse  which  subsisted,"  Sec— Inquiry,  &c. 

§  Lord  Rosse  {Defence  of  ancient  Ireland)  and  Sir  William  Betham  ;— the 
latter  a  practised  Irish  scholar.    See  his  Gael  and  Cymbri, 


64 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


antiquary,  however,  would,  in  his  ardour,  prove  too  much ;  and, 
paradoxical  as  the  assertion  may  appear,  the  more  completely 
his  pretended  case  is  made  out,  the  more  improbable  it  be- 
comes :  since,  to  produce  so  close  a  conformity  between  the 
Phoenician  and  the  Irish,  as,  in  his  zeal,  he  has  endeavoured  to 
make  appear,  it  would  have  been  necessary,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  Punic  language  should  have  undergone  no  consider- 
able change  during  the  six  centuries  that  elapsed  from  the 
foundation  of  Carthage  till  the  time  when  Plautus  wrote ;  and 
that,  in  the  next  place,  Ireland  herself  should  not  only  have 
been  colonized  directly  from  Carthage,  but  have  retained  the 
language,  through  so  many  centuries,  little  altered  from  its 
first  source.*  But  the  mere  statement  of  such  an  hypothesis 
is  a  sufficient  exposure  of  its  absurdity.  That  process  of  cor- 
ruption by  which  the  primitive  language,  or  languages  of  Eu- 
rope, came  to  be  broken  up  into  so  great  a  variety  of  dialects 
has  continued  to  operate  with  the  same  rapidity  ever  since,  till 
not  only  have  the  difl^erent  nations,  at  this  day,  all  distinct 
tongues,  but  even  the  early  form  of  each  of  these  tongues  has 
become,  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  wholly  unintelligible 
to  the  direct  descendants  of  those  who  first  wrote  and  spoke  it. 
Even  in  ancient  times,  so  widely  had  some  of  the  Celtic  na- 
tions already  departed  from  their  common  language,  that,  as 
appears  from  Poly  bins,  it  was  only  through  the  medium  of  an 
interpreter  that  the  Carthaginians,  in  the  time  of  Hannibal, 
could  hold  communication  witli  the  Gauls. 

In  their  prohibition  of  the  use  of  letters,  as  a  means  of  com- 
municating instructions,  lay  the  essential  point  of  difference 
between  the  Gaulish  and  Irish  Druids.  The  declared  princi- 
ple upon  which  the  former  abstained  from  recording  their 
science — a  principle  held  by  them,  we  know,  in  common  with 

In  some  instances  tlie  Punic  of  Plautus  and  the  Irish  confronted  with  it  by 
Vallancey  are  almost  identical,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  specimen:— 


Byth  IjTn  mo  thym  noctothii  nel  ech  an  ti  daisc  machon 
Ys  i  de  lebrim  thyfe  lyth  chy  lys  chon  temlyph  ula. 

IRISH. 
Beth  liom  !  mo  thime  noctaithe,  niel  ach  an  ti  daisic  mac  coinne 
Is  i  de  leabhraim  tafach  leith,  chi  lis  con  teampluibh  ulla. 
See,  for  the  rest,  Vallancey's  Irish  Grammar. 

It  appears,  from  a  late  disclosure  (See  Hardimaii's  Irish  Minstrelsy,  Intro- 
duction), that  this  curious  discovery  of  Irish  in  Plautus,  by  which  Vallancey 
gained  so  much  celebrity,  is,  after  all,  not  his  own,  but  was  borrowed,  with- 
out any  acknowledgment,  from  a  manuscript  which  came,  by  accident,  into 
his  hands. 
*  Lord  Rosse,  Defence  of  Ireland. 


RELIGIOUS    SOLEMXITIES.  65 

most  of  the  sages  of  antiquity — was,  that  Memory  being  the 
great  living  depositary  of  knowledge,  it  was  to  be  feared  that, 
if  once  accustomed  to  consign  her  treasures  to  writing,  she 
might  feel  absolved  from  the  high  trust,  and,  by  degrees,  relax 
in  her  guardianship  of  the  precious  stores  committed  to  her.* 
That,  on  this  speculative  point,  the  Irish  Magi  differed  from  the 
Druids  of  Gaul,  is  proved  by  their  possession,  as  we  have  seen, 
of  a  secret  form  of  writing,  expressly  designed  at  once  to  trans- 
mit the  sacred  learning  to  their  successors,  and  yet  effectually 
conceal  it  from  the  inquisitive  eyes  of  the  profane. 

Wherever  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  has  prevailed, 
there  astronomy,  as  the  natural  handmaid  of  such  a  religioft,  has 
been  found  likewise  to  flourish ;  and  the  Phoenicians,  the  great 
sun-worshippers  of  antiquity,  were  also  the  greatest  astrono- 
mers, f  The  skill  of  the  Irish  Druids  in  this  science  would 
seem,  in  one  very  important  particular,  to  have  outgone  that 
of  their  brethren  of  Gaul,  who  measured  the  year,  as  we  col- 
lect from  Pliny,  but  by  lunations,  or  revolutions  of  the  moon, 
whereas  the  Irish  appear  to  have  attained  some  glimmering 
notion  of  the  mode  of  reconciling,  by  the  means  of  intercalary 
days,  the  difference  between  the  lunar  and  solar  year.  This, 
they  are  alleged  to  have  effected  by  adding  to  the  360  days,  of 
which  the  twelve  lunations  consisted,  five  days  and  a  quarter 
of  the  period  annually  devoted  by  them  to  the  celebration  of 
their  ancient  Taltine  Games.| 

The  very  custom,  indeed,  of  a  great  annual  festival  existing, 
for  any  time,  among  a  people,  would  seem,  of  itself,  to  imply 
that,  in  regulating  the  length  of  their  year,  they  employed 
some  more  certain  measure  than  the  revokitions  of  the  moon ; 
since  otherwise,  the  same  confusion  must,  in  time,  have  arisen, 

*  See  a  remarkable  passage,  in  tlie  Phaedrus  of  Plato,  of  which  the  above 
is  the  substance,  where  the  god  Thoth  is  represented  as  recommending  his 
invention  of  letters  to  a  king  of  Egj'pt,  and  is  answered,  in  a  strain  of  acute 
observation,  by  the  king.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  soundness  of 
his  arguments,  as  directed  against  all  use  of  letters  whatsoever,  to  a  very 
general  diffusion  of  that  gift  they  will  be  found,  I  fear,  but  too  applicable. 
"  It  would  lead  men,"  says  the  king,  "to  a  sort  of  false  and  useless  learning, 
teaching  them  opinions,  not  truth— So^tof  6s  tois  fxaOcTais  So^av  ovk  oXtj- 
Oeiav  77op«^3(j — the  natural  consequence  of  which  is,  that  they  will  become 
opinionated,  not  wise — Ao^oaocpoi  avri  cocpoiv" 

t  "  That  which  hath  given  the  Sabians  the  greatest  credit  among  the  peo- 
ple of  the  East  is,  that  the  best  of  their  astronomers  have  been  of  this  sect ; 
for  the  stars  being  the  gods  they  worshipped,  they  made  them  the  chief  sub- 
ject of  their  studies:'— Prideaux's  Connection,  book  iii.  part  i. 

X  Q,uemadmodum  in  nostro  Civili  Compute,  annus,  universali  consensu 
constat  diebus  tantum  365,  excepto  quovis  anno  quarto  seu  Bissextili  dierum 
366,  sic  etiam  apud  Druidos  Hibernos  invaluisse  assero  artem,  qua  Ludos 
Taltinios  ad  Solstitia,  expletis  Lunationibus  12  accommodabant,  quinque 
dies  cum  quadrante  addentes  anno  Lunari  dierum  360,  ut  popularera  annum 
adimplerent.— iier.  Hibern.  Script.  Prol.  1.  34. 

6* 


66  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

on  the  recurrence  of  such  a  festival,  as  provoked  the  ridicule 
of  Aristophanes  against  the  calendar  of  the  Greeks.  But, 
among  the  Irish,  there  appear  to  have  been  observed,  at  least, 
three  annual  festivals,  each  marking  one  of  those  Raths^  or 
quarters,  into  which  their  year  was  divided.  Beginnmg  the 
year,  in  the  manner  of  the  Persians,  at  the  Vernal  Equinox, 
they  then  solemnized  their  great  Fire  Feast,  La  Bealtinne ; 
and  the  second  Rath,  which  commenced  at  the  Summer  Sols- 
tice, and  was  called  the  Course,  or  Season  of  Gaiety,  they  sig- 
nalized by  the  celebration  of  the  Taltine  Games,  or  Sports. 
In  three  months  after  were  performed,  in  the  Field  of  Howl- 
ing, those  dreadful  sacrifices,  of  which  mention  has  already 
been  made,  and  by  which  the  opening  of  the  third  Rath,  or 
Autumnal  Equinox,  was  commemorated.*  The  three  remain- 
ing months  of  the  year,  unmarked,  as  far  as  appears,  by  any 
periodical  solemnity,  except  the  usual  lighting  up  of  fires  on 
the  high  places,  constituted  the  fourth  Rath,  or  quarter. 

The  degree  of  knowledge  as  to  the  equinoctial  and  solstitial 
points,  which  this  division  of  the  twelve  months  seems  to  im- 
ply, would  incline  us  to  believe,  that  the  ancient  Irish  were 
not  entirely  unacquainted  with  that  first  approach  to  a  correct 
measure  of  time,  the  luni-solar  year ;  and  some  of  the  terms 
employed,  in  their  language,  on  the  subject,  tend  to  confirm 
this  view.  Thus,  the  year  was  called  by  them  Bel-ain,  or  the 
Circle  of  the  Sun,  while  the  Zodiac  they  named  Beach-Grian, 
or  the  Revolution  of  the  Sun  ;  and  the  Solstices  were  termed 
Grian-stad,  or  the  Sun's  stopping  places.  It  has  been  conjec- 
tured, and  with  much  probability,  that  the  stone  circles  of  the 
Druids  were  employed  no  less  as  rude  observatories  than  as 
places  of  judicature  and  worship ;  and  the  position,  in  most  of 
them,  of  the  great  perpendicular  stones,  of  which  some,  it  is 
said,  are  placed  generally  in  or  near  the  meridian  of  the  spot, 
while  others  are  as  carefully  stationed  to  the  right  or  left  of 
the  centref,  would  seem  to  indicate,  in  their  construction,  some 
view  to  astronomical  purposes. |  It  is  remarked,  too,  that  they 
are  situated  chiefly  on  eminences  commanding  an  extensive 

*  Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  Ep.  Nunc. 

t  King's  Munimenta  Antiqua,  vol.  i. 

t  For  the  same  purpose,  it  would  appear  that  upright  stones  and  rocks 
were  employed  by  the  Goths  and  Sucons.  "  They  have  no  use,"  says  Olaus, 
"of  sun  dials,  but  they  use  only  the  high  stones  of  rocks  that  are  placed 
partly  by  nature,  partly  by  cunning,  that  by  an  infallible  conjecture  do 
overshadow  the  sunbeams  and  distinguish  the  parts  of  the  dny."— Olaus 
Magnus,  book  i.  chap.  19. 

In  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xiv.,  may  be  found 
an  account  of  a  remarkable  old  building  on  the  north  side  of  Kenmare  river, 
called  Staigne  Fort,  and  supposed,  by  Mr.  Nimmo,  to  have  been  originally 


DIVISION    OF    T13IE.  67 

rang"e  of  horizon ;  and  a  circle  thus  placed,  in  Merionethshire, 
is  called  Cerig  Brudyn,  or  the  Astronomer's  Stones,  or  Circle.* 
A  similar  monument,  bearing  much  the  same  designation,  is 
described  by  antiquaries  as  existing  near  Dundalk, 

In  addition  to  this  and  other  remains,  supposed  to  have  been 
connected  as  well  with  astronomy  as  with  religion,  the  ancient 
Irish  had  also  their  Round  Towers,  or  Fire-Temples,  which 
appear  to  have  been  applied  to  the  same  double  purpose.  It  is, 
indeed,  highly  probable,  from  the  name  "  Celestial  Indexes" 
affixed  to  them  by  the  chroniclers,  that  one  of  the  chief  uses 
of  these  structures  was  to  stand  as  gigantic  gnomons,  and  by 
their  shadows  measure,  from  solstice  to  solstice,  the  gradual  in- 
crease and  decrease  of  the  day. 

From  a  passage  which  occurs  in  an  old  life  of  Moctheus, 
the  first  Bishop  of  Louthf,  it  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
division  of  time,  by  the  week  or  cycle  of  seven  days,  was  not 
unknown  to  the  Pagan  Irish ;  and  if  there  be  any  good  grounds 
for  such  a  notion,  it  affords  an  additional  confirmation  of  the 
very  early  origin  claimed  for  Druidism ;  since  it  appears,  that 
soon  after  the  lapse  of  mankind  into  idolatry,  the  observance 
of  the  Mundane  week  fell  everywhere  into  disuse,  excepting 
only  among  the  family  of  Abraham,  by  whom  it  was  faithfully 
preserved,  and  from  them  transmitted  down  through  the  de- 
scendants of  Ishmael  to  tlie  Mahometans.^ 

intended  for  an  observatory.  See  his  reasons  annexed  to  the  essay.—"  It 
appeared  to  me,"  he  says,  "  that  the  structure  exhibited  a  sort  of  rude  gradu- 
ation of  the  horizon." 

*"  There  is  also,  in  Ireland,"  says  King,  "  an  astronomer's  hill  belonging 
to  the  Druids,  called  Carrick  Edraond,  which  cannot  but  remind  us  of  the 
Kerrig  Edris  in  Wales." 

\  Peractis  vero,  ut  moris  erat  Genlilium,  dicbns  septem  cxequiarum. 

X  This  view  of  the  history  of  the  Sabbatical  institution  may  be  found 
argued  at  some  length,  and  \ipon  apparently  solid  grounds,  liy  a  commentator 
on  Pliny,  lib.  xvi.  c.  95.  (Valpy'«  Edition).  This  writer,  however,  denies 
that  the  Druids  were  acquainted  with  the  hebdomadal  cycle.  "  Cluod  hie 
obiter  annotandum  est,  mirum  profecto  nullum  apud  Romanos  Graecosvc 
vel  hos  etiam  Druidos,  hebdomadarum  usum  fuisse.  Cyclum  scilicet  septem 
dierum  Deum  ipsummet  habet  auctorem  :  sed  Abrahfe  temporibus  neglectus 
ab  hominibus  quia  essent  in  idolotatriam  omnes  fere  prolapsi.  Sola  hunc 
ser  vavit  Abraha;  domus  :  et  mos  solis  Abrahae  posteris  est  cognitus." 

According  to  one  of  Whitaker's  etymological  conjectures,  not  only  did 
the  British  Druids  observe  the  cycle  of  seven  days,  but  the  name  Sabaith, 
he  thinks,  was  likewise  given  by  them  to  their  Sunday,  or  Day  of  the  Sun, 
though  bearing  an  entirely  different  meaning  from  that  of  the  Sabbath  of 
the  Jews ;  "  and  it  was  in  order,"  he  says,  "  to  take  advantage  of  this  acci- 
dental coincidence,  that  the  Jewish  Sabbath  was  transferred  by  the  Chris- 
tians to  the  Druidical  Sunday."— Celtic  Vocabulary,  p.  91. 


68 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  V. 


POETIC,  OR  BARDIC,  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EARLY  INHABITANTS  OF  IRl 

So  intermixed  together  are  reality  and  fiction  in  the  first 
record  of  most  nations,  and  each,  in  passing  through  the  me- 
dium of  tradition,  assumes  so  deceivingly  the  features  of  the 
other,  that  the  attempt  to  distinguish  between  them  is  a  task 
of  no  ordinary  responsibility ;  more  especially  where  national 
vanity  has  become  interested  in  the  result ;  or  where,  as  in  the 
case  of  Ireland,  a  far  deeper  feeling  of  wounded  pride  seeks 
relief  from  the  sense  of  present  humiliation  and  suffering,  in 
Buch  indistinct  dreams  of  former  glory. 

As  the  earliest  chroniclers,  too,  of  most  countries,  have  been 
poets,  the  duty  of  stripping  off  those  decorations  and  disguises 
in  which  matter  of  fact  comes  frequently  arrayed  from  such 
hands,  is,  in  general,  the  first  the  historian  is  called  upon  to 
perform;  and  often,  in  attempting  to  construct  truth  out  of 
materials  so  shadowy.  History  has  become  but  the  interpreter 
of  the  dreams  of  Poesy.  By  this  process  it  is  that  the  fanciful 
fictions  of  Greece  and  of  Egypt  have  been  resolved  into  real 
records  of  human  personages  and  events;  and  even  their  Gods, 
dislodged  from  their  high  station,  have  been  brought  back  by 
history  to  the  humble  earth  from  whence  they  sprung.  Far 
different,  however,  from  the  mythic  traditions  of  these  classical 
nations  are  the  dry  memorials  of  past  adventures  and  person- 
ages which  our  native  historians  have  handed  down ;  and  while 
to  the  Greeks  belonged  the  power  of  throwing  gracefully  the 
veil  of  fiction  over  reality,  the  Bardic  Historians  may  lay 
claim  to  the  very  different  merit  of  lending  to  the  wildest  and 
most  extravagant  fictions  the  sober  lineaments  of  fact. 

Respecting  the  degree  of  credit  due  to  the  early  history  of 
Ireland,  two  directly  opposite  opinions  are  entertained  ; — both 
equally,  as  in  all  such  questions,  removed  from  the  fair  medium 
of  truth.  While  to  some  the  accounts  given  by  the  Bardic 
writers  of  all  that  passed  in  the  ancient  Pagan  times  appear 
undeserving  of  any  credit  whatsoever, — their  opinion  being, 
that  it  is  only  with  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  faith  in  that 
country,  that  its  history  begins  to  assume  any  credible  shape — 
there  are  others,  on  the  contrary,  who  believe  in  all  that  flat- 
ters their  feeling  of  national  glory,  surrendering  their  reason 
wilfully  to  the  guidance  of  fanciful  historians,  who,,  by  means 
of  a  deceptive  system  of  chronology,  have  invested  fable  with 


IRISH    CHRONICLES.  69 

much  of  the  grave  and  authoritative  aspect  of  history.  Between 
these  two  extreme  views  of  the  subject,  the  over-sceptical  and 
the  credulous,  a  just  medium  may,  as  in  most  sucli  cases,  be 
found ;  and  the  true  value  of  our  traditionary  memorials  be  cor- 
rectly ascertained,  without  either  questioning  indiscriminately 
their  claims  to  credence  with  the  one  party,  or  going  headlong 
into  the  adoption  of  all  their  fictions  and  extravagances  with 
the  other. 

The  publication,  by  Doctor  O'Connor,  the  late  reverend 
librarian  of  Stowe,  of  the  Irish  Chronicles,  in  their  original 
language,  accompanied  by  a  Latin  translation  and  explanatory 
notes,  has,  for  the  first  time"^,  put  the  world  in  possession  of 
the  means  of  judging  for  itself  of  the  truth  and  value  of  docu- 
ments which  had  before  only  been  known  through  the  reports 
of  modern  Irish  writers,  conveyed  in  all  the  vagueness  of  allu- 
sion and  mist  of  paraphrase. 

To  the  real  importance  of  these  records,  which  differ  whol- 
ly, m  form,  matter,  and  authenticity,,  from  those  compilations 
of  the  middle  ages  of  which  mention  has  just  been  made, 
there  will  occur,  in  the  course  of  this  work,  opportunities  of 
more  particularly  adverting.  Our  business,  at  present,  as  well 
with  them  as  with  the  other  class  of  documents  alluded  to, 
which,  though  branching  out  so  extravagantly  into  fable,  have 
often  their  roots  laid  deep  in  traditional  truth,  must  be  to  refer 
to  them  merely  as  repositories  of  the  ancient  traditions  of  the 
country,  as  retaining  traces  of  those  remote  times  to  which  no 
history  reaches,  and  as,  therefore,  of  use  in  the  task  imposed 
upon  all  inquirers  into  the  first  origin  of  a  people, — that  of 
seeking,  through  the  dim  vista  of  tradition,  some  glimmerings 
of  truth.  And  even  here,  in  this  obscure  region  of  research, 
it  is  far  less  in  the  actual  events  related  by  the  Bards  and 
Seanachies,  than  in  the  absurdly  remote  period  to  which  the 
first  links  of  their  chain  of  tradition  is  carried,  that  any  very 
insurmountable  obstacle  to  our  belief  in  most  of  their  narra- 
tives lies :  and  this  disposition  to  extend  and  elevate  their  anti- 
quity, has  marked  the  first  imperfect  attempts  at  chronology 
in  all  countries.     Even  among  some  whose  history,  in  other 

*  In  the  work  of  Keating,  written  originally  in  Irish,  are  embodied  most 
of  the  old  national  traditions;  but,  besides  that  he  has  strung  them  together 
without  any  selection  or  judgment,  and  but  seldom  attempts  to  discriminate 
between  the  record  of  the  annalist  and  the  fable  of  the  bard,  his  work  has  to 
answer,  it  seems,  for  even  more  than  its  own  original  extravagances,  as  some 
of  the  fictions  that  most  disfigure  it,  and  have  most  contributed  to  draw  down 
ridicule  on  Irish  history,  are  said  to  have  been  the  fraudulent  interpolations 
of  his  translator,  Dermod  O'Connor.  The  aptest  description  of  Keating's 
hook  is  that  given  by  the  clever  and  turbulent  Peter  Talbot,  who  pronounces 
it  "  Insigne  plane,  sed  insanum  opus." 


70  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


I 


respects,  has  received  the  authenticating  sanction  of  ages,  the 
same  ambition  is  known  to  have  prevailed.  Thus,  in  the  cal-"^ 
culations  of  the  Egyptians,  the  interval  between  two  of  their 
kings  was  made  to  occupy  no  less  a  period  than  11,340  years  ; 
and  yet  that  two  such  kings  really  existed,  and  were  named 
Menes  and  Sethon,  is  accounted  by  no  means  the  less  probable 
or  historical  for  this  absurd  flight  of  calculation ;  nor  is  it  at  all 
questioned,  that  under  the  serene  skies  of  Chaldaea  astronomy 
may  have  had  its  birth,  because  that  people  boasted  of  having 
made  observations  upon  the  stars  through  a  period  of  470,000 
years. 

So  far  back  in  the  night  of  time  have  our  Bardic  Historians 
gone  in  quest  of  materials,  that,  from  the  very  first  age  of  the 
world,  we  find  marked  out  by  them  a  regular  series  of  epochs, 
which  have  each  been  signalized  by  the  visit  of  some  new; 
colony  to  their  shores.  Beginning  a  few  weeks  before  the 
Flood,  when  as  they  say,  a  niece  of  Noah,  named  Cesara, 
arrived  with  a  colony  of  antediluvians  upon  the  Irish  coast*,^ 
they  from  thence  number,  through  the  lapse  of  ages,  no  less 
than  five  or  six  diflferent  bands  of  adventurers,  by  which  the  5 
island,  at  various  intervals,  had  been  conquered  and  colonized. 

To  dwell,  at  any  length,  on  the  details  of  the  earlier  of 
these  settlements, — details  possessing  neither  the  certainty  of 
history,  nor  the  attractiveness  of  fable, — can  hardly  be  deemed 
necessary.  Still  so  much  of  truth  is  occasionally  intermixed 
with  their  fictions,  and  so  many  curious,  if  not  important 
speculations,  have  arisen  out  of  this  period  of  Irish  history, 
that  to  pass  it  over  without  some  degree  of  notice,  would  be 
to  leave  the  task  attempted  in  tliese  pages  incomplete. 

From  the  time  of  Cesara,  who  is  allowed  on  all  hands  to 
have  been  a  purely  fabulous  personage,  there  occurs  no  men- 
tion of  any  colony  till  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury after  the  Flood,  when  Ireland  was  invaded,  and  taken 
possession  of,  by  a  chief,  of  the  race  of  Japhet,  named  Par- 
tholan,  who,  landing  at  Imbersciene,  in  Kerry,  says  O'Fla- 
herty,  "  the  14th  day  of  May,  on  a  Wednesday,"  fixed  his  resi- 

*  According  to  Bardic  authorities,  cited  by  Keating,  tlie  arrivals  in  Ire- 
land, before  the  Deluge,  were  numerous;  aiid,  among  other  visiters,  three 
daughters  of  Cain  are  mentioned.  The  famous  White  Book,  so  much  ridi- 
culed by  some  of  the  Scotch  controversialists,  is  the  authority  cited  for  this 
story.  See  chapter  headed,  "  Of  the  first  Invasion  of  Ireland  before  the 
Flood." 

It  is  probable  that  for  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  wild  inventions  respecting 
Partholan  and  the  Nemedians,  we  are  indebted  to  a  poet  or  Seanachie  of 
the  tenth  century,  named  Eochaidh  O'Floinn,  of  whose  numerous  writings 
an  account  may  be  found  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Iberno-Celtic  Society 
for  1820. 


FABLES    OF   THE    IRISH    BARDS.  71 

dence  in  the  province  of  Ulster,  upon  an  island  named  Inis- 
Samer,  in  the  river  Erne.  The  fables  related  by  the  Irish 
bards  respecting  Partholan, — his  faithless  wife,  her  favourite 
greyhound,  the  seven  lakes  that  burst  forth  after  his  arrival, — 
may  all  be  found  in  the  rhyming  form  that  best  suits  them,  in 
the  marvellous  pages  of  Keating.  After  holding  possession  of 
the  country  for  three  hundred  years,  the  race  of  Partholan 
were  all  swept  away  by  a  plague ;  and  the  Hill  of  Howth, 
then  called  Ben-Heder,  was  the  scene  of  the  most  awful  rav- 
ages of  this  pestilence. 

To  this  colony  succeeded  another,  about  the  time,  it  is  said, 
of  the  patriarch  Jacob,  who  were  called,  from  the  name  of 
their  leader,  Nemedians,  and  are  said  to  have  come  from  the 
shores  of  the  Euxine  Sea.  The  fierce  wars  waged  by  this 
people  with  the  Fomorians,  a  tribe  of  African  sea-rovers,  who 
then  infested  the  coast  of  Ireland,  form  one  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque subjects  of  tlie  ancient  Irish  Muse.  The  stronghold 
of  these  African  mariners,  who  are  supposed,  not  improbably, 
to  have  been  Carthaginian  traders,  was  the  Tower  of  Conan, 
which  stood  upon  an  island  on  the  sea-coast  of  Ulster,  named 
from  this  structure  Tor-inis,  or  the  Island  of  the  Tower.  This 
fortress  the  Nemedians  stormed;  and,  after  dislodging  from 
thence  their  formidable  enemy,  left  not  a  trace  of  the  mighty 
structure  standing.  An  Irish  poem  called  "  The  Storming  of 
the  Tower  of  Conan,"  still  exists  in  the  noble  library  of 
Stowe.  The  Fomorians,  however,  having  been  joined  by  fresh 
supplies  of  force,  a  general  battle,  by  land  and  sea,  ensued, 
in  which  the  Africans  were  victorious,  and  the  Nemedian 
colony  being  all  dispersed  and  destroyed,  the  country  was 
once  more  left  at  the  mercy  of  those  foreign  marauders,  and 
relapsed  into  wildness  and  desolation  for  the  space  of  two 
hundred  years. 

The  next;  and,  in  number,  the  third,  of  these  colonies, 
which  was  known  to  the  Irish,  by  the  name  of  Fir-Bolgs,  first 
imposed  upon  them,  it  is  said,  the  yoke  of  regal  authority, 
and  dividing  the  island  into  five  parts  or  provinces,  established 
that  pentarchal  form  of  government,  which  continued,  with 
but  few  interruptions,  till  the  twelfth  century  of  our  era. 
The  five  sons  of  Dela,  under  whose  command  the  colony  had 
landed,  shared  the  kingdom,  according  to  this  division,  between 
them*,  placing  a  stone  in  the  centre  of  the  island  at  the  spot 

*  According  to  Hanmer's  Clironicle,  there  arose  dissensions  between  these 
brothers,  and  the  youngest,  Slainge,  having,  fas  Hanmer  expresses  it,)  "  en- 
croached round  about  the  middle  stone  and  hxed  meare  aforesaid,"  usurped 
at  length  the  sole  rule  of  the  country. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

where  their  five  ^  shares  met.  Their  tenure  of  royalty,  ho\ 
ever,  was  but  short ;  for,  not  more  than  thirty  or  forty  years  hs 
this  quintuple  sovereignty  remained  in  their  hands,  when  the) 
were  dispossessed  by  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,  a  people  famec 
for  necromancy,  who,  after  sojourning*  for  some  time  in  Greece, 
where  they  had  learned  this  mysterious  art,  proceeded  from 
thence  to  Denmark  and  Norway,  and  became  possessors,  while 
in  those  countries,  of  certain  marvellous  treasures,  amon^ 
which  were  the  Stone  of  Destiny,  the  sorcerer's  spear,  am 
the  magic  caldron.  Armed  with  these  wonderful  gifts*,  th< 
tribe  of  the  Danaans  next  found  their  way  to  Scotland,  and 
after  a  rest  there  for  some  years,  set  sail,  under  the  auspices 
of  their  chieftain,  Nuad  of  the  Silver  Handf,  for  Ireland 
Here,  landing  secretly,  under  cover  of  a  mist  which  theii 
enchantments  had  raised,  these  sorcerers  penetrated  into  th< 
country,  and  had  reached  Sliabh  an  laruinn,  the  Mountain  a 
Iron,  between  .the  lakes  of  Allen  and  Eirne,  before  their  pre 
sence  was  discovered.  The  alarmed  Belgians,  thus  taken  b] 
surprise,  retreated  before  them  rapidly  into  Connaught,  where 
at  Moytura,  on  the  borders  of  Lake  Masg,  that  sanguinar] 
battle  took  place,  which,  under  the  name  of  the  Battle  of  th< 
Field  of  the  Tower,  was  long  a  favourite  theme  of  Iris| 
song. I     Defeated  signally  by  their  invaders,  the  Belgians  fle< 


*  In  one  of  the  old  Irish  romances,  on  the  subject  of  Finn  Mac  Com hs 
lliat  hero  is  imagined  to  have  derived  a  portion  of  liis  knowledge  from  th 
waters  of  a  certain  magical  fountain,  which  was  in  the  possession  of  th( 
Tuatlia-de-Danaan,  and  of  which  a  single  draught  was  sold  for  three  hundred 
ounces  of  gold. 

t  So  called  from  an  artificial  silver  hand,  which  he  wore  to  supply  the  los 
sustained  from  a  wound  he  received  in  the  battle  of  Moytura.  We  are  toU 
seriously  by  OTlaherty,  that  "Cred,  a  goldsmith,  formed  the  hand,  and  Miach 
the  son  of  Dian  Kect,  well  instructed  in  the  practical  parts  of  chirurgery,  se 
the  arm." — Ogygia,  part  iii.  ch.  10. 

One  of  the  grandsons  of  this  Nuad,  named  Brittanus,  or  Maol  Briotan,  i 
said  to  have  passed  over,  after  their  defeat,  into  North  Britain ;  and  froii 
him,  according  to  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  the  Britons  derived  their  origin.  IS 
this  tradition  Camden  alludes,  in  a  note  on  his  Introduction  :—"  Britanni) 
dicta  est  a  quodam  qui  vocabatur  Britannus."  There  is  also  another  of  tti 
grandsons  of  Nuad,  named  Simon  Breac,  who  is  made  to  play  a  distinguishc 
part  in  the  Scotch  version  of  our  Milesian  story  ;  being  represented  thereil 
as  the  importer  of  the  famous  Stone  of  Destiny,  and  even  substituted,  in  plac 
of  Heremon,  as  the  founder  of  the  Milesian  monarchy.  {Fordun,  l.i.  c.  3( 
See,  also,  Slillingjieet's  Origin.  Britan.  cap.  5.)  The  Scotch  antiquarians 
however,  seem  to  have  confounded  this  primitive  3imon  Breac  with  anothe 
of  the  same  name,  also  grandson  of  a  King  Nuad,  who  flourished  four  centi 
ries  later.    See  Innes,  vol.  ii.  sect.  2. 

\  There  are  in  the  library  of  Stowe,  says  Dr.  O'Connor,  no  less  than  fiyi 
metrical  chronicles,  in  which  this  battle  of  Moytura  is  commemorated.— /2c« 
Hibern.  Script.  Prol.  ii.  37. 


TUATHA-DE-DANAAN.  73 

to  the  Isle  of  Man,  North  Aran*,  and  the  Hebrides,  and  the 
victorious  Danaans  became  in  their  turn  sole  masters  of  the 
country. 

In  process  of  time,  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  were  themselves 
dispossessed  of  their  sway ;  a  successful  invasion  from  the  coast 
of  Spain  having  put  an  end  to  the  Danaanian  dynasty,  and 
transferred  the  sceptre  into  the  hands  of  that  Milesian  or  Scotic 
race,  which,  through  so  long  a  series  of  succeeding  ages,  sup- 
plied Ireland  with  her  kings,  •  This  celebrated  colony,  though 
coming  directly  from  Spain,  was  originally,  we  are  told,  of 
Scythic  race,  and  its  various  migrations  and  adventures  before 
reaching  its  Isle  of  Destiny  in  the  West,  are  detailed  by  our 
Bards,  with  all  that  fond  and  lingering  minuteness  in  which 
fancy,  playing  with  its  own  creations,  so  much  delights  to  in- 
dulge. Grafting  upon  this  Scythic  colony  the  traditional  traces 
and  stories  of  their  country,  respecting  the  Phcenicians,  they 
have  contrived  to  collect  together,  without  much  regard  to 
either  chronology,  history,  or  geography,  every  circumstance 
that  could  tend  to  dignity  and  add  lustre  to  such  an  event ; — 
an  event  upon  which  not  only  the  rank  of  their  country  itself 
in  the  heraldry  of  nations  depended,  but  in  which  every  indi- 
vidual, entitled  by  his  Milesian  blood  to  lay  claim  to  a  share  in 
so  glorious  a  pedigree,  v/as  interested.  In  order  more  com- 
pletely to  identify  the  ancestors  of  these  Scythic  colonists  with 
the  Phcenicians,  they  relate  that  by  one  of  them,  named  Fenius, 
to  whom  the  invention  of  the  Ogham  character  is  attributed, 
an  academy  for  languages  was  instituted  upon  the  Plain  of 
Shenaar,  in  which  that  purest  dialect  of  the  Irish,  called  the 
Bearla  Feini,  was  cultivated. 

From  thence  tracing  this  chosen  race  in  their  migrations  to 
different  countries,  and, connecting  them,  by  marriage  or  friend- 
ship, during  their  long  sojourn  in  Egypt,  with  most  of  the 
heroes  of  Scripture  history,  our  Bards  conduct  them  at  length, 
by  a  route,  not  very  intelligible,  to  Spain.  There,  by  their 
valour  and  enterprise,  they  succeed  in  liberating  the  country 
from  its  Gothic  invaders  f ,  and,  in  a  short  time,  make  them- 
selves masters  of  almost  the  whole  kingdom.  Still  haunted, 
however,  in  the  midst  of  their  glory,  by  the  remembrance  of 

*  See  Sketch  of  the  History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Southern  Isles  of  A#an, 
by  John  T.  O'Flaherty,  Trans,  of  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xiv. 

t  We  have  here  a  specimen  of  that  art  of  annihilating  both  space  andtfme 
which  is  so  prodigally  exhibited  throughout  the  Milesian  story.  Among  the 
many  different  nations  that  in  succession  became  masters  of  Spain,  the  occu- 
pation of  that  kingdom  by  the  Goths,  which  is  here  assumed  as  having  taken 
place  in  the  remote  Milesian  times,  did  not  really  occur  till  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  century  of  our  era. 

Vol.  I.  7 


74  HISTOKY    or    IliELAND. 

a  prophecy,  which  had  declared  that  an  island  in  the  Western 
Sea  was  to  be  their  ultimate  place  of  rest,  the  two  sons  of 
their  great  leader,  Milesius,  at  len^h  fitted  out  a  grand  martial 
expedition,  and  set  sail,  in  thirty  ships,  from  the  coast  of  Gal- 
licia  for  Ireland.  According  to  the  Bardic  chronology,  1300 
years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  but  according  to  Nennius, 
iEngus  *  and  others,  near  five  centuries  later,  this  "  lettered 
and  martial  colony,"  (to  use  the  language  of  one  of  its  most 
zealous  championsf),  arrived  under  the  command  of  the  sons 
of  Milesius,  on  the  Irish  coasts;  and  having  effected  a  landing 
at  Inbher  Sceine,  the  present  Bantry  Bay,  on  Thursday,  the 
first  of  May,  a.  m,  2934 1,  achieved  that  great  and  memorable 
victory  over  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  ^,  which  secured  to  them- 

*  Psttlter-na-Rann.  iEiigus  is  here  referred  to  merely  as  the  putative 
author  of  this  work,  a  liigrh  authority  having  pronounced  that  there  are  no 
grounds  for  attributing  it  to  him.  (Lanigan,  Kcclesiastiral  History  of  Ire- 
land, vol.  3.  c.  20.)  The  very  nature,  indeed,  of  some  of  the  contents  of 
this  Psalter,  if,  as  Bishop  Nicholson  asserts,  it  contains  a  catalogue  of  the 
kings  of  Ireland,  from  Ileremon  down  to  Brian  Boroimhe,  who  was  slain 
in  1014,  siiows  that  it  could  not  have  been  the  production  of  a  writer  of  the 
f;ighth  century. 

t  Dissertations  on  Irish  History,  sect.  21. 

t  Ogygia,  part  iii.  ch.  16.  O'Flaherty  has  here  reduced,  it  will  be  observed, 
the  calculation  of  the  Bards,  and  computes  the  date  of  liis  landing  to  have 
been  only  a  thousa)id  years  before  our  era ;  while  Keating  adheres  to  the 
authority  of  the  Psalter  of  Cashol,  in  fixing  it  three  centuries  earlier.  The 
author  of  Dissertations  on  the  History  of  Ireland,  (as  I  shall  henceforth  de- 
signate Mr.  O'Connor  of  Bclanagare,  in  order  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
reverend  descendant,  the  late  librarian  of  Stowe,)  at  first  adopted  the  calcu- 
lation of  O'Flaherty,  but  saw  reason  afterwards  to  abate  near  five  centuries 
of  that  date  (see  Ogiig.  Vindic,  preface  ;  also.  Reflections  on  History  of  Ire- 
land, Collcctan.  No.  10) ;  and  Dr.  O'Connor  is  content  to  refer  the  coming  of 
the  Milesians  to  the  year  before  Christ  489.  (Her.  Hibcrn.  Script.  Prol.  ii.  45.) 
The  most  extravagant,  however,  of  all  the  computations  of  this  event  is  that 
made  by  Donald  O'Neil,  a  king  of  Ulster,  who,  writing  in  the  year  1317,  to 
Pope  John  XXII.,  assures  his  holiness  that  the  Milesian  colony  settled  in  Ire- 
land  about  2300  years  before  the  Christian  era.  See  Fordun,  (Scotichron.)  to 
whom  we  must  trust  for  the  authenticity  of  this  curious  document.  It  is  also 
quoted,  but  without  reference  to  any  authority,  by  Usher,  Kccles.  ^ntiquitat. 
c.  1(5.  In  endeavouring  to  fix  the  period  of  the  Argonautic  expedition,  the 
learned  author  of  The  Remains  of  Japhet  comes  gravely  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  must  have  been  about  the  same  number  of  years  from  the  flood  as  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  the  Milesians ;  and  adds,  "  so  that  if  Jason  did  sail 
to  Ireland,  it  must  have  been  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  Milesians 
in  that  kingdom." 

§  The  fondness  of  the  Irish  for  their  old  national  traditions  is  shown  in  the 
names  given  to  remarkable  places  throughout  the  country,  most  of  which 
may  be  traced  to  some  famous  hero  or  heroine,  commemorated  in  ancient 
songs  and  tales.  Even  the  shore  on  which  the  antediluvian  nymph  Cesara 
was  said  to  have  been  buried,  used  to  be  pointed  out,  in  the  days  of  Giraldus, 
with  reverence.  (Topog.  Dist.  3.  c.  1.)  Memorials,  in  like  manner,  of  the 
great  battle  between  the  Milesians  and  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  were  preserved 
for  ages  on  the  spot  where  that  combat  is  said  to  have  occurred.  Not  only 
of  the  chieftains,  but  of  the  ladies  and  druids  who  fell  in  the  fight,  the  names 
were  associated  with  the  valleys  and  hills  in  that  neighbourhood.  An  old 
poem  on  the  Battle  of  Sliabh-Mis  is  referred  to  by  Smith,  {History  of  Kerry,) 


COLONIZATION    OF    IRELAND.  75 

selves  and  their  princely  descendants,  for  more  thah  2 

the  supreme  dominion  over  all  Ireland.  jrffjSf -^' 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HISTORICAL  VIEW   OF  TIIK   COLONIZATION   OF   IREl!^5y[).    Q^ 


Mbra 


When  stripped  of  their  fanciful  dates,  and  reduced 
due  bounds  of  antiquity,  these  traditions  of  the  first  settlements 
in  Ireland,  however  fabulously  coloured,  may  be  taken  as  pre- 
serving the  memory  of  some  of  those  early  invasions,  of  which, 
in  times  when  the  migratory  spirit  was  alive  over  the  whole 
earth,  this  island  must  frequently  have  been  the  object.  The 
story  of  a  colony,  in  remote  ages,  under  a  chieftain  of  the  race 
of  Japhet,  falls  in  with  the  hypothesis  of  those  who,  in  tracuig 
westward  the  migration  of  the  Noachidse,  include  both  Britain 
and  Ireland  among  those  Isles  of  the  Gentiles  *  which  became, 
on  the  partition  of  the  earth,  tlie  appanage  of  the  descendants 
of  Japhet.  The  derivation  of  a  later  settlement,  the  Neme- 
dians,  from  some  country  near  the  Euxine  Sea,  coincides  no 
less  aptly  with  the  general  current  of  European  tradition,  ac- 
cording to  which  the  regions  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Caucasian  mountains  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  main  source  of 
the  population  of  the  Westf 

We  have  shown  it  to  be  probable,  as  well  from  foreign  as 
from  native  tradition,  that  Ireland  derived  her  primitive  popu- 
lation fi-om  Spain.  The  language  brought  by  these  first  settlers 
was  that  which  was  common  then  to  all  the  Celts  of  Europe. 
Those  Spanish  colonies,  therefore,  placed  by  Ptolemy  on  the 
south  and  south-western  coasts  of  Ireland,  must  have  arrived 
there  at  some  much  later  period,  when  the  dialect  of  the  Celtic 
anciently  spoken  in  Spain  had  become  corrupted  by  mixture 
with  other  tongues ;  as  it  is  plainly  from  these  later  Spanish 
settlers  must  have  flowed  that  infusion  into  the  Irish  language 
of  a  number  of  Basque  or  Cantabrian  words,  which  induced 

who  adds,  tliat  "  the  monumental  stones  said,  in  the  above  poem,  to  have 
been  erected  over  the  graves  of  the  noble  warriors,  are  still  remaining  on 
Mount  Cahirconree,  one  of  the  Sliabhmis  mountains  in  Kerry." 

*  The  first  language  spoken  in  Europe,  says  Parsons,  was  the  Japhetan, 
called  afterwards  the  Pelasgian  ;  "  and  this  language,"  he  asserts,  "  is  now 
to  be  found  only  in  Ireland,  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  and  Wales."  Ac- 
cording to  the  Chronicle  of  the  Celtic  Kings,  Japhet  was  the  first  British 
monarch.    See  Sammes,  ch.  10. 

{■  See  Sir  William  Jones's  Sixth  Discourse,  On  the  Persians. 


76  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  learned  antiquary,  Edward  Lhuyd,  to  imagine  a  degree  of 
affinity  between  these  tongues.* 

In  the  direction  of  Spain,  it  is  most  likely,  whatever  of  • 
foreign  commerce  or  intercourse  the  ancient  Irish  may  have 
possessed,  was,  down  to  a  comparatively  recent  period,  main- 
tained. The  description  given,  indeed,  by  a  poet  of  our  own 
days,  of  the  geographical  position  of  Ireland,  as  standing  "  with 
her  back  turned  to  Europe,  her  face  to  the  West,"  is  far  more 
applicable  to  the  state  of  her  political  and  commercial  rela- 
tions in  those  times  of  which  we  are  speaking.  Wholly  with- 
drawn from  the  rest  of  Europe,  her  resort  lay  along  the  shores 
of  the  Atlantic  alone ;  and  that  commerce  which  frequented 
her  ports  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  was  maintained,  not 
certainly  with  the  Romans,  to  whom  she  was  then  and  for  ages 
after  unknown,  but  with  Iberian  merchants  most  probably,  and 
with  those  descendants  of  the  ancient  Phoenician  settlers  who 
inhabited  the  western  coasts  of  Spain, 

A  remark  above  applied  to  the  Spanish  colonization,  will  be 
found  applicable  also  to  the  colonies  from  Gaul.  Whatever 
share  may  have  been  contributed  by  that  country  to  the  first 
Celtic  population  of  Ireland,  it  was  not  till  a  much  later  pe- 
riod, most  probably,  that  the  Gaulish  colonies,  named  by  Ptole- 
my, established  themselves  in  the  island.  The  people  called 
Fir-Bolgs  by  the  Bards  were,  it  is  evident,  Belgae,  of  the  same 
race  with  those  in  Britain ;  but  at  what  period  they  fixed  them- 
selves in  either  country,  and  whether  those  wlio  took  possession 
of  Ireland  were  derived  mediately  through  Britain,  or  direct 
from  Belgic  Gaul,  are  questions  that  must  still  remain  open  to 
conjecture.  The  Menapii  and  the  Cauci,  both  nations  of  the 
Belgic  coastf,  came  directly,  it  is  most  probable,  to  Ireland,  as 

*  •'  As,  by  collating  the  laiij,niages,  I  have  found  one  i)art  of  the  Irish 
reconcileable  to  tlie  Welsh;  so,  by  a  (lili<fenl  perusal  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  some  manuscript  papers  I  received  from  the  learned  Dr.  Edward  Brown, 
written  in  the  lanj^uage  of  the  Cantabrians,  I  have  had  a  satisfactory  know- 
ledge as  to  the  affinity  of  the  other  part  with  the  old  Spanish." — Preface  to 
Lhuyd's  Olossographxj.  The  attempt  to  prove  this  allei^ed  affinity  is  admitted 
to  have  been  an  utter  failure  :  the  instances  of  resemblance  between  the  two 
languages  being  no  greater  than  may  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  such 
engraflments  on  the  original  speech  of  a  country  as  foreign  colonies  are 
always  sure  to  introduce.  See  Baxter,  on  the  word  /hernia,  where  he  has 
allowed  himself  to  be  misled  by  this  false  notion  of  Lhuyd  into  some  very 
erroneous  speculations. 

t  "  Both  these  nations,"  says  the  Monk  Richard,  "  were  undoubtedly  of 
Teutonic  origin,  but  it  is  not  "known  at  what  period  their  ancestors  passed 
over."  W^hitaker,  however,  who  will  allow  no  fact  to  stand  in  tlie  way  of 
his  own  hypothesis,  with  respect  to  the  peopling  of  Ireland  exclusively  from 
Britain,  deserts  his  favourite  guide,  Richard,  on  this  poitit,  and  insists  that 
the  Menapii  and  the  Cauci  were  not  German,  but  British  tribes.  (Hist,  of 
Manchester,  book  i.  ch.  12.  sect.  4.)    Camden,  Dr.  O'Connor,  Wood,  {Inquiry 


THE    BELG-li:=  77 

there  is  no  trace  of  them  to  be  found  in  Britain,— the  town  of 
Menapia  in  Wales  having  been  founded,  it  is  thought,  by  the 
Irish  Menapii.*  In  the  Bardic  historians  we  find  a  romantic 
account  of  a  monarch,  named  Labhra  Longseach,  who  having 
been  exiled,  m  his  youth,  to  Gaul,  returned  from  thence  at  the 
head  of  a  Gaulish  colonyf,  which  he  established  in  the  regions 
now  known  as  the  counties  of  Wicklow  and  Wexford.  This 
site  of  the  settlement  corresponds  exactly,  as  will  be  seen,  with 
the  district  assigned  by  Ptolemy  to  the  Menapii;  and,  in  fur- 
ther confirmation  both  of  the  tradition  and  of  this  geographer's 
accuracy,  we  find  the  old  Irish  name  for  the  harbour  which 
these  foreigners  first  entered  to  have  been  Loch  Garman,  or  the 
harbour  of  the  Germans. 

In  that  maze  of  uncertainty  and  confusion  which,  notwith- 
standing all  that  has  been  written  upon  the  subject,  continues 
to  perplex  the  inquiries  of  the  learned  into  the  lineage  of  the 
different  races  of  Europe,  it  remains  still  a  contested  question, 
whether  the  Belgce  were  a  Celtic  or  a  Teutonic  race.|  In 
England,  whose  early  history  is  so  much  involved  in  the  deci- 
sion, not  merely  as  regards  the  origin  and  composition  of  her 
people,  but  also  in  all  that  relates  to  the  formation  of  her  lan- 
guage and  the  gradual  rise  of  her  institutions,  the  opinions 
hitherto  advanced  on  the  subject  have  been  pretty  equally  ba- 
lanced ;  and  while,  on  the  one  side,  Whitaker,  Chalmers,  and 

into  the  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Ireland,)  aud  other  authorities,  all  pronounce 
these  tribes  to  liave  been  of  Gernifin  origin  ;  as  were,  most  probably,  the 
neighbours  of  the  Menapii,  the  Coriondi. 

*  "  They  must  have  come  from  Belgic  Gaul  and  Germany,  for  we  meet 
with  no  trace  of  them  in  Britain  ;  Menapia,  in  Wales,  being  founded  by  the 
Irish  Menapii." — Ledwich,  Antiquities. 

t  From  the  long  spears,  called  Laighean,  with  which  the  Gauls  who  ac- 
companied this  prince  were  armed,  the  province  of  Leinsfer  is  said  to  have 
derived  its  ancient  name  of  Coige-Laighean,  or  the  Province  of  the  Spears. 
See  O'Halloran,  vol.  ii.  ch.  C. 

J  The  cause  of  this  confusion,  which  has  arisen  principally  from  the  inter- 
mixture of  the  Germans  and  Gauls,  by  reciprocal  colonization,  is  well  stated 
l»y  a  writer  in  the  Memoires  de  I'Academie,  torn,  xviii.  "  II  est  sur  que  lea 

Celtes  et  les  Germains,  6toient  deux  nations    differentes mais    les 

colonies  qui  avoient  passe  du  niidi,  ou  de  la  Gaule,  dans  la  Gerinanie,  et 
celles  qui  etoient  descendus  de  la  Germanic  dans  la  Gaule,  lesavoient  cxtre- 
mement  melees,  et  je  ne  doute  pas  qu'il  ne  fallut  une  certaine  attention 
pour  dem^ler  les  differences  qui  les  distinguoiont."  Pinkerton,  also,  iias 
given  an  explanation,  perhaps  still  more  satisfactiny,  of  the  origin  of  this 
c/mfusion  between  the  races:— "As  the  Celts  had  anciently  possessed  all 
Gaul,  their  name  was  continued  by  some,  and  by  the  distant  Greek  writens 
especially,  to  all  the  Gauls:  though  the  Belgre  and  Aquitani,  the  Galli 
Braccati,  and  others,  or  the  far  greater  part  of  the  Gauls,  were  not  Celts, 
but  the  expellers  of  the  Celts.  The  case  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  English, 
who  are  called  Britons,  not  as  being  ojd  Britons,  but  as  expellers  of  those 
Britons,  and  as  living  in  Britain."— 7>i.s^sfr/ar/o7t  on  the  ScvtJdans  or  (Hothi, 
part  ii.  ch.  4. 

7  -(^ 


78  HISTORY    OF    IliELAXD. 

others,  reinforced  recently  by  the  able  concurrence  of  Dr. 
Pritchard*,  have  held  the  Belgee  to  be  of  Celtic  origin,  several 
distinguished  writers,  on  the  other  hand,  among  whom  is  the 
author  of  the  learned  Enquiry  into  the  Rise  of  the  English 
Commonwealthf,  have,  as  it  appears  to  me,  on  far  more  tenable 
grounds,  both  of  reasoning  and  authority,  pronounced  this  peo- 
ple to  have  been  of  purely  Teutonic  descent.  With  respect 
to  Ireland,  the  term  Scythic,  applied  to  the  Belgic  colony,  leads 
to  the  inference  that  they  were  there  held  to  be  a  northern  or 
Gothic  race ;  and  that  their  language  must  have  been  different 
from  that  of  the  Celtic  natives,  appears  from  the  notice  taken 
in  the  Book  of  Lecane|,  of  a  particular  form  of  speech  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Belgaid. 

The  Tuatha-de-DanEians,  by  whom  the  Beiges  were,  as  we 
have  seen,  defeated  and  supplanted,  are  thought  by  some  to 
have  been  a  branch  of  the  Damnonians  of  Cornwall ;  while 
others,  more  consistently  with  tradition,  derive  their  origin 
from  those  Damnii  of  North  Britain,  who  inhabited  the  districts 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  river  Dee  and  the  Frith  of  Clyde.§ 
Of  the  historical  verity  of  these  two  colonies,  the  Fir-Bolgs 
and  Danaans,  no  doubt  can  be  entertained ;  as  down  to  a  pe- 
riod within  the  fair  compass  of  history,  the  former  were  still  a 

*  Researches  into  the  Physical  History  of  Mankind.  One  of  tlie  reasons 
alleged  bj-  this  writer,  for  supposing  the  Belgic  to  have  been  akin  to  the  Erse 
is,  that  "  several  nani<!S  of  persons  and  places  in  those  parts  of  South 
Britain  which  were  probably  occupied  by  Belgic  people,  belong,  according  to 
their  orthography,  to  the  Erse,  and  not  to  the  Cambro-Celtic  dialect."  But 
the  real  solution'of  the  difficulty  here  stated  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  demon- 
strated by  Lhuyd  and  others,  that  the  primitive  possessors  of  the  country 
now  called  Wales  were  a  race  speaking  a  dialect  of  the  Erse,  or  Jrish,  and 
that  from  them,  not  from  the  Belgffi,  the  permanent  features  of  the  country 
derived  their  names. 

t"The  main  body  of  the  population  of  England  is  derived  from  the 
Belgic  nation,  one  of  the  three  great  families  into  which  the  Teutones  are 
divided." — Sir  F.  Palgrave's  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Commonwealth, 
vol.  i.  ch.  2.  See,  also,  for  curious  remarks  upon  the  affinity  between  the 
Frisic  and  Anglo-Saxon  languages  (the  former  being,  it  is  there  said,  the 
least  altered  branch  of  the  Belgic),  Ed.  Rev.  vol.  iii.  art.  1.— Nor  must  the 
acute,  though  dogmatic,  Pinkerton  be  forgotten  among  the  supporters  of  the 
Gothic  origin  of  the  Belgaj.  See  Dissert,  on  the  Ooths,  part  ii.  ch.  3.,  where, 
in  addition  to  his  own  opinion  and  authority,  he  adds  the  following  in  a 
note  : — "  Paul  Merula,  in  his  Cosniographia,  seems  to  be  the  first  who  saw 
that  the  ancient  Belgie,  on  account  of  their  German  origin,  spoke  the  Gothic 
tongue  ;  and  his  reasons  to  prove  it  (pars  i.  lib.  3.)  cannot  be  answered." 

t  As  quoted  by  Wood  [Enquiry  into  the  Primitive  Inhabitants,  &c.)— Iliis 
writer,  who  follows  Pinkerton  in  supposing  the  Belgce  to  have  been  the 
Scots,  adopts  also,  of  course,  his  opinion  as  to  the  former  being  Teutones. 
"  The  only  inhabitants  of  Ireland  (he  says)  who  seem  to  have  attracted  the 
notice  of  British,  Roman,  and  other  foreign  writers,  were  the  enterprising 
BelgiE,  whom,  as  Goths  or  Scythians,  they  denominated  Scoti  or  Scuit." 

§"From  hence,  perhaps,  they  borrowed  the  name  of  Tuath  Dee;  that  is, 
a  people  living  contiguous  to  the  river  Dee."— Oxy^.,  part  i. 


MAP    OF    PTOLEMY.  79 

powerful  people  in  Connaught,  having,  on  more  than  one  im- 
portant occasion,  distinguished  themselves  in  the  intestine 
commotions  of  the  country ;  and  the  famous  Goll,  the  son  of 
Morni,  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Ossianic  age,  was  said  to  be  of 
the  blood-royal  of  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  princes.* 

Among  the  tribes  marked  by  Ptolemy  in  his  map,  a  few 
suggest  themselves  as  requiring  particular  notice.  It  was,  as 
might  be  expected,  in  the  south  and  south-western  parts  of  Ire- 
land, the  region  nearest  to  the  coasts  of  Spain,  that  the  tribes 
originating  in  that  country  vv^ere  to  be  found.  Thus  the  Iverni, 
whose  chief  city,  according  to  Ptolemy,  was  Ivernis,  or  Hy- 
bernis,  occupied,  in  addition  to  a  portion  of  Cork,  all  that  part 
of  Kerry  which  lies  between  the  Promontorium  Austrinum, 
or  Mizen  Head,  and  the  river,  anciently  called  the  lernus, 
now  the  river  Kenmare.  We  can  have  little  doubt  as  to  the 
source  from  whence  the  lernus  derived  its  name,  when  we  find, 
on  the  north-west  coast  of  Spain,  another  river  lerne,  and  also 
a  promontory  in  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  bearing  the 
same  name.  The  term  thus  applied  signifies,  in  Celtic,  the 
uttermost  point ;  and  in  its  appropriation  thus  successively  to 
each  of  these  places,  we  trace,  by  stages,  as  it  were,  the  pro- 
gress of  Phoenician  discovery  in  the  west;  the  same  name, 
which  they  v/lio  first  reached  the  western  coasts  of  Spain  left 
as  a  mark  of  the  uttermost  bounds  of  their  knowledge  in  that 
direction,  having  been  afterwards,  on  the  discovery  of  Ireland, 
transferred,  in  the  same  sense,  to  her  shores.f 

The  Velabri,  a  people  situated  near  Kerry  Head,  were  also, 
it  is  supposed,  of  Spanish  origin ;  while  the  Gangani  (more 
properly  Concani)  and  the  Lucenif,  tribes  inhabiting  near  each 

*  See  Translation  of  an  Ode,  attributed  to  GoU,  by  O'Halloran,  Transac- 
tions of  Royal  Irish  Academy  for  the  year  1788. 

t  "  The  reason  which  concludes  me  in  the  belief  that  Ireland  took  its  name 
from  the  Phoenicians,  is  because  in  the  uttermost  coast  of  Spain,  westward, 
is  a  promontory,  called  by  Strabo,  lerne,  and  the  river  next  to  it  is  called  by 
Mela  lerne  ;  but  when  these  islands  were  discovered,  then  Ireland  took  this 
name  as  the  uttermost." — Sammcs,  Britann.  Antiq.  Illust.  chap.  5.  Though 
by  Camden  and  several  other  writers,  the  authority  of  Strabo  is,  in  like 
manner,  referred  to,  for  the  existence  of  a  Spanish  promontory,  called  lerne, 
there  is,  in  reality,  no  such  headland  mentioned  by  that  geographer.  Accord- 
ing to  Hoffman,  it  was  a  mountain  that  was  thus  named  (Zezic.  in  tocc)  ; 
and  he  also  refers  to  Strabo,  but,  as  far  as  I  can  find,  with  no  better  au- 
thority. 

Similar  to  Sammes's  derivation  of  the  name  lerne,  is  that  of  Hibernia,  as 
given  by  Bochart,  who  says  that  it  signifies  the  last  or  most  western  dwell- 
ing-place. "Nihil  aliud  est  quam  Ibernics  ultima  habitatio  ;  quia  ultra  Hi- 
berniam  versus  occasum  veteres  nihil  noverant  quam  vastum  mare." — Oeo- 
graph.  Sac.  lib.  xii.  c.  39. 

X  "  The  Luceni  of  Ireland  seem  to  derive  their  name  and  original  from  the 
Lucensii  of  Gallitia,  in  the  opposite  coast  of  Spain,  of  whose  names  some 
remains  are  to  this  day  in  the  barony  of  Lixnaw."— Camdew. 


80  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

other  ill  Spain,  continued  also,  after  migration,  to  be  near 
neighbours  in  Ireland ;  the  Luceni  having  established  them- 
selves on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Shannon,  while  the  Concani, 
from  whom  Connaught  is  said  to  have  been  named,  fixed  their 
station  upon  the  western.  The  claims  of  the  Brigantes  to  be 
accounted  a  Spanish  colony,  appear  by  no  means  so  valid; 
though  from  the  share  assigned  to  this  people  in  the  romantic 
adventures  of  the  Milesians,  it  becomes  a  point  of  importance 
with  the  believers  in  that  story  to  establish  their  direct  descent 
from  Spain.  According  to  the  Bards,  it  was  by  Breoghan,  the 
great  ancestor  of  the  Milesians,  that  their  city  Brigantia,  near 
the  site  of  the  present  Corunna,  was  built ;  and  it  was  from  the 
top,  as  they  tell  us,  of  a  lofty  light-house,  or  Pharos,  erected 
on  the  Gallician  coast,  tliat  Ith,  the  son  of  Breoghan,  looking 
northward,  one  starry  winter  night,  discovered,  by  means  of  a 
miraculous  telescope,  the  isle  of  Eirin  to  which  they  were 
destined.  It  is  added,  tliat  tJie  descendants  of  these  Spanish 
heroes  were,  to  a  late  period,  distinguished  by  the  title  of  the 
Clan  Breogan  *,  and  that  to  them  the  name  of  Brigantes  was 
applied  by  Ptolemy  in  his  map.  All  this,  however,  plausibly 
as  it  may  seem  to  be  supported  by  the  existence  of  an  actual 
city  named  Brigantia  f,  in  Gallicia, — the  very  region  from 
whence  most  of  the  Spanish  colonies  were  derived, — is  but  a 
creation  evidently  of  the  later  national  historians,  founded  upon 
the  true  and  ancient  traditions  of  a  colonization  from  the  north- 
west of  Spain. 

The  most  probable  account  of  the  Brigantes  is,  that  they 
were  a  branch  of  that  powerful  tribe  of  the  same  name  in 
Britain,  whose  territories  extended  over  no  less  than  five  of 
the  present  English  counties,  and  who  became  the  most  potent 
and  numerous  people  of  all  the  ancient  Britons.|  On  the 
strength  of  a  mere  conjecture,  suggested  by  Carnden  § ,  the 

*  Dissertatiovs  on  the  History  of  Ireland,  chap.  13. 

tOn  no  other  grounds  did  Florianus  del  Campo,  an  author  mentioned  by 
Camden,  undertake  to  prove  tliat  the  Brigantes  of  Britain  were  derived, 
through  Ireland,  from  his  own  country,  Spain.  There  is  al.so  an  Essay,  by 
Mons.  le  Brigant  (published  17G2).  in  which  he  professes  to  prove  that  they 
"  were  the  most  ancient  inhabitants  of  Spain,  France,  Germany,  Portugal, 
England,  and  of  Ireland  in  part."  Baxter  had  already  given  much  the  same 
account  of  them,  deriving  them  originally  from  the  ancient  Phrygians. 
Availing  himself,  too,  of  a  whimsical  reading  of  Scaliger,  who,  in  a  passage 
of  Seneca,  converts  "  Scuto-Brigantes"  into  "  Scoto-Brigantes,"  Baxter  ap- 
plies this  latter  name,  throughout  his  work,  to  the  Scots  uiio  colonized  North 
Britain,  choosing  to  con.sider  them  as  a  mixed  race  between  the  Brigantes 
of  Britain,  and  the  JrMh—Olos^ar.  ^ntiq.  passim. 

X  Brigantium  civitatem,  qute  numerosissima  provincifc  totius  perhibetur. 
■—Tacit.  Jigrie.  c.  17. 

§  "  If  it  may  not  be  allowed  that  our  Brigantes  and  those  in  Ireland  had 
the  same  naiiies,  upon  the  same  account,  I  had  rather,  with  my  learned 


THE    NAGNATiE.  81 

date  of  their  migration  into  Ireland  is  fixed  so  late  as  the  year 
of  our  era  76,  when  Petilius  Cerealis  was  governor  of  Britain. 
But  for  this  assumption  there  appears  to  be  no  historical  au- 
thority whatsoever.  The  mention,  indeed,  of  the  Brigantes 
in  Ptolemy's  map  of  Ireland,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  only 
the  more  ancient  of  her  tribes  are  marked  down,  sufficiently 
disproves  the  recent  date  thus  assigned  to  their  migration. 

The  Nagnatse,  a  people  inhabiting  Connaught,  and  supposed 
to  have  contributed  to  the  compound  name  of  that  province*, 
deserve  to  be  peculiarly  noticed  on  account  of  their  chief  city 
Nagnata,  to  which  Ptolemy  applies  the  epithet  "  eminent,"  or 
"  illustrious  f ,"  and  which  is  conjectured  to  have  stood  not  fiir 
from  the  present  Sligo.|  We  find,  also,  among  the  towns 
enumerated  by  this  geographer,  Eblana,  or  Deblana  ^ ,  a  city 
belonging  to  the  tribe  called  the  Eblanii,  and  placed  by  Ptolemy 
under  the  same  parallel  with  the  present  Dublin. 

Having  touched  briefly  on  all  that  appeared  to  me  most 
worthy  of  observation  among  the  earlier  tribes  and  septs  of 
Ireland,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  that  latest 
and  most  important  of  all  her  settlements,  the  Scythic,  or 
Scotic,  fi*om  whence  the  whole  of  her  people  in  the  course  of 
time  received  the  name  of  Scots,  and  retained  it  exclusively 
to  so  late  a  period  as  the  tenth  century  of  our  era.||  A  sketch 
of  the  history  of  tliis  colony,  as  contained  in  the  Psalters  and 
metrical  records  of  the  Bards,  has  been  already  given  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  and  may  be  found  at  large  in  the  work  of 

friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Savil,  conjecture  that  some  of  our  Brigantes,  with  others 
of  the  British  nations,  retired  into  Ireland  upon  the  coming  over  of  the  Ro- 
mans—some for  the  sake  of  ease  and  quietness,  others,"  &c.  &c.  On  this 
point,  Whitaker  and  his  follower.  Wood,  are,  as  usual,  satisfied  with  the 
sole  authority  of  the  Monk  Richard,  whose  words  bear  most  suspiciously,  I 
must  say,  the  appearance  of  having  been  copied  from  the  above  passage  of 
Camden  :— "  Nationes  quae  cum  vel  ab  hoste  finitimo  non  daretur  quies  vel, 
&c.  &c.  in  hanc  terram  trajecerunt."  There  are,  indeed,  strong  grounds  for 
suspecting  that  this  pretended  work  of  the  Monk  of  Cirencester,  upon  which 
Whitaker,  Chalmers,  Wood,  and  others,  have  founded  so  many  speculations, 
was  but  a  clever  forgery  of  the  last  century,  fabricated,  it  is  probable,  for  the 
express  purpose  of  imposing  upon  the  learned  but  credulous  Dr.  Stukely,  to 
whom  the  manuscript  of  it  was  so  suspiciously  transmitted. 

*  Compounded,  possibly,  says  Camden,  of  Concani  and  NagnatiB. 

t  IloXts  tiTiarinos. 

J  "  I  cannot  discover,"  says  Ware,  "  the  least  footsteps  of  a  city  so  called, 
in  all  that  tract  of  country— so  all-devouring  is  Time !"— Chap.  6. 

§  Ita  enim  plane  reponendum  in  Ptolemaeo  pro  truncate  Eblana.— jBax^cr, 
Oloss.  Antiq.  Britan. 

11  Q,uod  ut  ante  undecimum  post  Christi  navitatem  seculum  haud  quaquam 
factum,  in  fine  prsecedentis  Capitis  declaravimus ;  ita  neminem  qui  toto 
antecedentium  annoram  spatio  scripserit,  produci  posse  arbitramur  qui  Scotim 
appellatione  Albaniam  unquam  designaverit.— CTsAer,  De  Britannic.  Eccles. 
Primord.  cap.  16. 


82  HISTORY    OF  IRELAKD 

Keating,  which  is  drawn  almost  wholly  from  these  romantic 
sources. 

It  is  a  task  ungracious  and  painful,  more  especially  to  one 
accustomed  from  his  early  days  to  regard,  through  a  poetic 
medium,  the  ancient  fortunes  of  his  country,  to  be  obliged,  at 
the  stern  call  of  historical  truth,  not  only  to  surrender  his  own 
illusions  on  the  subject,  but  to  undertake  also  the  invidious  task 
of  dispellmg  the  dreams  of  others  who  have  not  the  same  im- 
perative motives  of  duty  or  responsibility  for  disenchanting 
themselves  of  so  agreeable  an  error.  That  the  popular  belief 
in  this  national  tale  should  so  long  have  been  cherished  and 
persevered  in,  can  hardly  be  a  subject  of  much  wonder.  So 
consolatory  to  the  pride  of  a  people  for  ever  struggling  against 
the  fatality  of  their  position  has  been  the  fondly  imagined  epoch 
of  those  old  Milesian  days,  when,  as  they  believe,  the  glory  of 
arts  and  arms,  and  all  the  blessings  of  civilization  came  in  the 
traui  of  their  heroic  ancestors  from  the  coasts  of  Spain,  that 
liitherto  none  but  the  habitual  revilers  and  depredators  of  Ire- 
land, the  base  scribes  of  a  dominant  party  and  sect,  have  ever 
thought  of  calling  in  question  the  authenticity  of  a  legend  to 
which  a  whole  nation  had  long  clung  with  retrospective  pride, 
and  which  substituting,  as  it  does,  a  mere  phantom  of  glory 
for  true  historical  fame,  has  served  them  so  mournfully  in  place 
of  real  independence  and  greatness.  Even  in  our  own  times, 
all  the  most  intelligent  of  those  writers  who  have  treated  of 
ancient  Ireland,  have  each,  in  turn,  adopted  the  tale  of  the 
Milesian  colonization,  and  lent  all  the  aid  of  their  learning 
and  talent  to  elevate  it  into  history.*  But,  even  in  their  hands, 
the  attempt  has  proved  an  utter  failure ;  nor  could  any  effort, 
indeed,  of  ingenuity  succeed  in  reconciling  the  improbabilities 
of  a  story,  which  in  no  other  point  of  view  differs  from  the 
fictitious  origins  invented  for  their  respective  countries  by 
Ilunibald,  Suffridusf ,  Geoffrey  Monmouth,  and  others,  than 
in  having  been  somewhat  more  ingeniously  put  together  by 

*  Lord  Rosse,  {Observations  on  the  Bequest  of  Henry  Flood,)  Dr.  O'Connor, 
iRerum  Hibernicarum  Scriptores  Vetcres,)  and  Mr.  D'Alton,  the  able  and  woll- 
informed  author  of  tlie  Essay  on  Ancient  Ireland,  are  among:  the  distinguished 
writers  here  alhided  to  as  having  graced,  if  not  invigorated,  this  view  of  the 
question  by  their  advocacy.  To  these  has  lately  been  added  Sir  W^illiam 
Betham,  who,  in  his  ingenious  work,  entitled  "The  Gael  and  the  Cymbri," 
has  shaped  his  hypothesis  to  the  same  popular  belief. 

t  A  fabricator  of  fictitious  origins  for  the  Prisons,  as  Hunibald  was  ai 
inventor  in  the  same  line  for  the  Franks;  the  latter  founding  his  fiction' 
professedly  upon  Druidical  remains.  Accordi  ng  to  SufFridus,  the  Prisons  wei 
in  possession  of  an  uninterrupted  series  of  annals  from  the  year  313  befor 
Christ.  "  Itaque  cum  ab  anno  313  ante  natum  Christum  exordium  sumant^ 
-De  Orig.  Fris.  See  the  Essay  of  M.  du  Rondeau,  Mem.  dc  Vjlcad.  de  Brm 
ellcs  art.  2d,  1773. 


THE  MILESIAN  COLONIZATION  A  FICTION.  83 

its  inventors,  and  far  more  fondly  persevered  in  by  the  ima- 
ginative people,  v^hose  love  of  high  ancestry  it  flatters,  and 
v^hose  wounded  pride  it  consoles. 

In  one  respect,  the  traditional  groundwork  on  which  the 
fable  is  founded,  may  be  accounted  of  some  value  to  the  histo- 
rian, as  proving  the  prevalence  in  the  country  itself  of  early 
traditions  and  remembrances  respecting  that  connexion  with 
the  coasts  of  Spain  and  the  East,  which,  as  well  from  Punic  as 
from  Grecian  authorities,  we  have  shown  that  the  leme  of 
other  ages  must  have  maintained. 

Had  the  Bards,  in  their  account  of  the  early  settlements,  so 
far  followed  the  natural  course  of  events  as  to  place  that  colony 
which  they  wished  to  have  considered  as  the  original  of  the 
Irish  people  at  the  commencement  instead  of  at  the  end  of  the 
series,  we  should' have  been  spared,  at  least,  those  difficulties 
of  chronology  which  at  present  beset  the  whole  scheme.  By 
making  the  Milesian  settlement  posterior  in  time  to  the  Fir- 
bolgs  and  the  Tuatha-de-Danaans,  both  the  poetry  and  the 
reality  of  our  early  annals  are  alike  disturbed  from  their  true 
stations.  The  ideal  colony,  which  ought  to  have  been  placed 
beyond  the  bounds  of  authentic  record,  where  its  inventors 
would  have  had  free  scope  for  their  flights,  has,  on  the  contra- 
ry, been  introduced  among  known  personages  and  events,  and 
compelled  to  adjust  itself  to  the  unpliant  neighbourhood  of 
facts ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  authentic  Belgse  and  Dam- 
nii,  accredited  beings  of  history,  have,  by  the  interposition  of 
this  shadowy  intruder,  been  separated,  as  it  were,  from  the  real 
world,  and  removed  into  distant  regions  of  time,  where  sober 
chronology  would  in  vain  attempt  to  reach  them.* 

It  is  true,  the  more  moderate  of  the  Milesian  believers,  on 
being  made  aware  of  these  chronological  difficulties,  have  sur- 
rendered the  remote  date  at  first  assigned  to  the  event,  and,  in 
general,  content  themselves  with  fixing  it  near  1000  years 
later.  But  this  remove,  besides  that  it  exposes  the  shifting 
foundation  on  which  the  whole  history  rests,  serves  but  to 
render  its  gross  anachronisms  and  improbabilities  still  more 
glaring.  A  scheme  of  descent  which  traces  the  ancestors  of 
the  Irish,  through  a  direct  series  of  generations,  not  merely  to 
the  first  founders  of  Phoenician  arts  and  enterprise,  but  even 
to  chieftains  connected  by  friendship  with  the  prophet  Moses 

i  There  is  scarcely  a  nation,  indeed,  in  Europe  which  has  not  been  provided 
I  thus  with  some  false  scheme  of  antiquity  ;  and  it  is  a  fact,  mournfully  signi- 
j  ficant,  that  the  Irish  arc  now  the  only  people  among  whom  such  visionary 
I  pretensions  are  still  clung  to  with  any  trust. 

!  *  According  to  the  calculation  of  the  Bards,  the  arrival  of  the  BelgiE  must 
I  have  been  at  least  1500  years  before  tlio  Christian  era. 


84  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

himself*,  had  need  of  a  remote  station  in  time  to  lend  even  a 
colouring  of  probability  to  such  pretensions.  When  brought 
near  the  daylight  of  modern  history,  and  at  the  distance  of 
nearly  a  thousand  years  from  their  pretended  progenitors,  it  is 
plain  these  Milesian  heroes  at  once  shrink  into  mere  shadows 
of  fable ;  and,  allowing  them  their  fullest  scope  of  antiquity, 
there  appear  no  grounds  for  believing  that  the  Scotic  colony 
settled  in  Ireland  at  a  remoter  period  than  about  two  centuries 
before  our  era.  That  they  succeeded  the  Firbolgs  and  Danaans 
in  their  occupation  of  the  country,  all  its  records  and  traditions 
agree ;  and  the  first  arrival  of  the  Belgic  tribes  in  Ireland  from 
the  coasts  of  Britain,  or  even  direct  from  Gaul,  could  hardly 
have  been  earlier  than  about  the  third  or  fourtli  century  before 
Christ. 

Another  strong  proof  of  the  comparatively  recent  date  of 
the  Scotic  colony,  is  the  want  of  all  trace  of  its  existence  in 
Ptolemy's  map  of  Ireland  f ,  where  the  entire  omission  of  evei 
the  name  of  the  Scoti  among  the  tribes  of  that  island,  showi 
that,  not  merely  to  the  Tyrian  geographers,  who  chiefly  dre^ 
up  that  map,  was  this  designation  of  her  people  wholly  un 
known ;  but  that  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  second  cen 
tury,  it  had  not  yet  reached  tlie  knowledge  of  Ptolemy  him 
self  For  this  latter  fact  the  state  of  seclusion  in  which  Ire 
land  had  so  long  remained, — shut  out,  as  she  was,  entirel 
from  the  circle  of  the  Roman  empire, — may  be  thought  sufl 
ciently,  perhaps,  to  account ;  as  well  as  for  the  equally  certain 
fact,  that  not  till  towards  the  end  of  the  third  century  doe 
there  occur  a  single  instance,  in  any  writer,  of  the  use  of  th 
term  Scotia  for  Ireland,  or  Scoti  for  any  of  her  people. 

But  the  most  remarkable  and,  as  it  appears  to  me,  decisiv 
proof  of  the  recent  date  of  the  Scotic  settlement,  still  remain 
to  be  mentioned.  We  learn  from  the  Confession  of  St.  Patriclj 
a  writing  of  acknowledged  genuineness,  that,  so  late  as  th 
life-time  of  that  Saint,  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  centurj 
the  name  of  Scots  had  not  yet  extended  to  the  whole  of  th 

*  Among  the  memorable  things  related  of  Moses  during  his  intercoura 
with  the  ancestors  of  the  Irish,  we  are  told  of  a  prediction  uttered  by  him  t 
their  chief  Gadelius,  that  "  wheresoever  his  posterity  should  remain  or  inhi 
bit,  serpents  should  have  no  power  in  that  land  to  hurt  either  man  or  beasi 
And  this  prophecy  is  verified  by  Candia  and  Ireland  ;  for  in  neither  of  thos 
islands,  as  being  inhabited  by  the  Gadelians,  it  is  manifest  that  serpents  hai 
any  power  as  they  have  in  any  other  countries."— M'Curtin's  Findication  q 
the  Antiquity  of  Ireland,  copied  chiefly  from  Keating. 

t  This  fact  is  noticed  by  the  geographer  Cellarius,  and  the  same  conclusioi 
deduced  from  it.  After  reviewing  the  other  tribes  of  Ireland,  he  says :  "  Ho 
populos  Ptolemaus  in  Hiberniaprodidit:  nullos  autem  in  illis  recensuit  Scoto 
quod  ideo  posteriores,  saltern  nomen  illorum,  oportet  in  hac  insula  fuisse.' 
L.  ii.  C.4. 


THE    SCOTI   AND   THE    HIBERIONACES.  85 

Irish  nation,  but  was  still  the  distinctive  appellation  of  only  a 
particular  portion  of  it.'"  It  is,  indeed,  evident  that  those  per- 
sons to  whom  St.  Patrick  applies  the  name  of  Scots,  were  all  of 
the  high  and  dominant  class ;  whereas,  in  speaking  of  the  great 
bulk  of  the  people,  he  calls  them  Hiberionaces, — from  the 
name  Hiberione,  which  is  always  applied  by  him  to  the  island 
itself  Such  a  state  of  things, — resembling  that  of  the  Franks 
in  Gaul,  when,  although  masters  of  the  country,  they  had  not 
yet  imposed  upon  it  their  name, — shows  clearly  that  the  Scotic 
dynasty  could  not  then  have  numbered  many  ages  of  duration ; 
and  that  to  date  its  commencement  from  about  a  century  or  two 
before  the  Christian  era  is  to  allow  the  fullest  range  of  antiquity 
to  which,  with  any  semblance  of  probability,  it  can  pretend. 

Even  when  lightened  thus  of  the  machinery  of  fable,  and  of 
all  its  unfounded  pretensions  to  antiquity,  the  Scotic  settle- 
ment must  still  continue  a  subject  of  mystery  and  discussion 
from  the  state  of  darkness  in  which  we  are  left  as  to  its  real 
race  and  origin;  and  in  this  the  Scoti  and  the  Picts  have 
shared  a  common  destiny.  In  considering  the  Scots  to  have 
been  of  Scythian  extraction,  all  parties  are  agreed, — as  well 
those  who  contend  for  a  northern  colonization  as  they  who,  fol- 
lowing the  Bardic  history,  derive  their  settlement,  through 
Spain,  from  the  East.  For  this  latter  view  of  the  subject,  there 
are  some  grounds,  it  must  be  admitted,  not  unplausible :  the 

*  Unde  autem  Hiberione,  qui  nunquam  notitiam  Dei  habuerunt,  nisi  idola 
et  immunda  usque  nunc  semper  coluerunt,  quomodo  nuper  facta  est  plebs 
Domini  et  filii  Dei  nuncupantur?  Filii  Scottorum  et  filiae  Regulorum  mo- 
nachi  et  virgines  Christi  esse  videntur.  Et  etiam  una  benedicta  Scotta, 
genitiva  nobilis,  pulcherrima,  adulta  erat,  quam  ego  baptizavi. — S.  Patricii 
Covfcssio. 

This  strong  proof  of  the  comparatively  modern  date  of  the  Scotic  settlement 
has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  unprejudiced  inquirers  into  our  antiquities. 
The  Bollandists,  Tillemont,  Father  Innes,  and,  lately,  the  learned  historian 
of  the  Irish  church,  Dr.  Lanigan,  have  all  perceived  and  remarked  upon  the 
passage  ;  the  two  latter  showing  how  fatal  to  the  dreams  of  Milesian  anti- 
quity must  be  considered  the  state  of  things  disclosed  in  this  authentic  docu- 
ment. The  nature  and  object  of  the  valuable  work  of  Dr.  Lanigan  were 
such  as  to  lead  him  only  to  the  consideration  of  our  ecclesiastical  antiquities ; 
but  the  few  remarks  made  by  him  upon  the  passage  of  St.  Patrick's  Confes- 
sion, just  cited,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  view  taken  by  his  clear  and  manly 
intellect  of  that  whole  apparatus  of  pompous  fable,  to  "which  so  many  of  the 
antiquaries  of  this  country  still  lend  their  sanction.  The  result  of  his  ob- 
servations on  the  subject  is,  that  "  following  the  analogy  usual  in  such  cases, 
we  may  conclude  that  the  invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  Scots  ought  not  to  be 
referred  to  as  high  an  antiquity  as  some  of  our  historians  have  pretended; 
otherwise  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  explain  how  they  could  have  been  in 
our  Saint's  time  considered  as  a  nation  distinct  from  the  greater  part  of  the 
people  of  Ireland."— ^ccZes.  Hist,  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  eh.  5.  He  adds  afterwards, 
that  "  tl)e  Scots  might  have  been  400  or  500  years  in  Ireland  before  the  dis- 
tinction of  names  between  them  and  the  other  inhabitants  totally  ceased;" 
thus  assigning  even  a  later  date  for  their  arrival  in  the  country  than,  it  will 
be  seen,  I  have  allowed  in  the  text. 

Vol.  I.  8 


86  HISTORY   OF   IRELAND. 


I 


Celto-Scythje,  who  formed  a  part  of  the  mixed  people  of 
Spain,  having  come  originally  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Euxine  Sea*,  and  therefore  combining  in  themselves  all  the 
peculiarities  attributed  to  the  MOesian  colony  of  being  at  once 
Scythic,  Oriental,  and  direct  from  Spain.  Of  the  actual  settle- 
ment of  several  Spanish  tribes  in  Ireland,  and  in  those  very 
districts  of  the  Irish  coast  facing  Gallic ia,  we  have  seen  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt ;  and  there  would  be,  in  so  far,  grounds 
for  connecting  them  with  the  Scotic  colonization,  as  in  that 
very  region,  it  appears,  was  situated  the  principal  city  of  the 
Scoti,  in  whose  name,  Hybernis,  may  be  found  the  mark  of  its 
Iberian  origin.  But  however  strongly  these  various  facts  and 
coincidences  tend  to  accredit  the  old  and  constant  tradition  of 
a  colonization  from  Spain,  at  some  very  remote  period,  and 
however  adroitly  they  have  been  turned  to  account  by  some  of 
the  favourers  of  the  Milesian  romance,  it  is  evident  that,  to 
the  comparatively  modern  settlement  of  the  Scots,  they  are,  in 
no  respect,  applicable ;  the  race  to  whom  the  southern  region 
of  Ireland  owed  its  Iberi  and  Hybernis,  the  names  of  its  river 
lerne  and  of  its  Sacred  Promontory,  having  existed  ages  be- 
fore the  time  when  the  Scoti — a  comparatively  recent  people, 
unknown  to  Maximus  of  Tyre,  or  even  to  Ptolemy  himself, — 
found  their  way  to  these  shores. 

We  have,  therefore,  to  seek  in  some  other  direction  the  true 
origin  of  this  people ;  and  the  first  clue  to  our  object  is  afforded 
by  the  Bardic  historians  themselves,  who  represent  the  Scoti 
to  have  been  of  Scythic  descent,  and  to  have  from  thence  deri- 
ved their  distinctive  appellation.  By  the  term  Scythia,  as 
applied  in  the  first  centuries  of  Christianity,  was  understood 
Germany  and  the  more  northern  regions  of  Europef ;  and  to  con- 
firm still  further  the  origin  of  the  Scots  from  that  quarter^,  it 

*  That  the  Scythae  of  Europe  came  from  the  northern  parts  of  Persia  seems 
to  be  the  opinion  of  most  inquirers  on  the  subject.  Hence  the  near  affinity 
which  is  found  between  the  German  and  the  Persian  languages. 

Among  those  authorities  which  have  run  the  round  of  all  the  writers  in  fa- 
vour of  the  Milesian  story  is  that  of  Orosius,  the  historian,  who  is  represented 
as  stating,  that  "  the  Scythians,  expulsed  from  Gallicia  in  Spain  by  Constan- 
tine  the  Great,  took  shelter  in  Ireland."— See  Dr.  Campbell.  {Strictures  on 
the  Ecclesiastical  and  Literary  History  of  Ireland,  sect.  5.)  This  authority, 
which  Dr.  Campbell  has,  in  his  turn,  taken  implicitly  for  granted,  would,  if 
genuine,  be  doubtless  highly  important.  But  there  is,  in  reality,  no  such 
statement  in  Orosius,  who  merely  mentions,  in  describing  the  position  of 
Ireland,  that  a  part  of  her  coasts  ranges  opposite  to  the  site  of  the  Gallician 
city,  Brigantia,  in  Spain. 

t  Thus  Anasta^ius,  the  Sinaite,  a  monkish  writer  whom  Pinkerton  cites 
as  of  the  ninth  age,  but  who  lived  as  early  as  the  sixth :— "  JlKvdiav  Se 
eiudaci  KoXeiv  ol  naXaioi  to  kXi^o  atrav  to  Bopciov,  tvda  ciaiv  ol  Tordoi  Kai 

^  The  genealogy  of  the  Milesians,  or  Scoti,  as  given  by  Keating,  lies  all  in 


THE    SCOTI    A    BRANCH    OF    THE   TEUTONI.  87 

is  added  by  the  Bards  that  they  were  of  the  same  race  witli 
three  colonies  that  had  preceded  them ;  namely,  the  Nemedians, 
the  Tuatha-de-Danaans,  and  the  Firbolgs  or  Belgse.  Now,  that 
these  tribes,  whether  coming  through  the  medium  of  Britain, 
or,  as  some  think,  direct  from  their  own  original  countries, 
were  all  of  German  extraction,  appears  to  be  the  prevailing 
opinion.  One  of  the  most  enthusiastic,  indeed,  of  the  Milesian 
believers  is  of  opinion  that  the  Nemedians,  or  Nemethse,  be- 
longed to  that  German  people,  the  Nemetes,  who  inhabited  the 
districts  at  present  occupied  by  Worms,  Spire,  and  Mentz.* 
By  some  the  Danaans  are  conjectured  to  have  been  Danes ;  or, 
at  least,  from  the  country  of  the  people  afterwards  known  by 
that  namef;  and  the  Bardic  historians,  who  describe  this 
colony  as  speaking  the  German^  language,  mention  Denmark 
and  Norway  as  the  last  places  from  whence  they  migrated  to 
the  British  Isles.  Of  the  claims  of  the  Belg«e  to  be  considered 
a  Teutonic  people^,  I  have  already  sufficiently  spoken;  and  to 
them  also,  as  well  as  to  the  other  two  colonies,  the  Scoti  are 
alleged  to  have  been  akin  both  in  origin  and  language. 

the  Sarmatian  line  ;  and  no  less  personages  than  Petorbes,  King  of  the  Hung, 
and  the  great  Attila  himself,  are  mentioned  as  belonging  to  one  of  the  colla- 
teral branches  of  their  race. 

*  Dissertations  on  the  History  of  Ireland,  sect.  13. 

t  Stillingfleet,  Origin.  Britann.  Preface.— Ledvvich,  Antiquities,  Coloniza- 
tion of  Ireland.— O'Brien,  Preface  to  Irish  Dictionary.— O'Flaherty  remarks, 
"  I  shall  not  aver  that  Danaan  has  been  borrowed  from  the  name  of  Danes, 
as  the  Danes  have  not  been  known  to  the  Latins  by  that  name  until  the 
establishmentof  Christianity,  though  they  might  have  gone  under  the  appel- 
lation earlier ;  in  the  same  manner  as  the  names  of  Scots  and  Picts  were  in 
use  before  they  came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Romans."— Ogyg.  part  1.  The 
name  of  Danes  was  not  known  till  the  sixth  century,  when  it  is  first  men- 
tioned by  the  historians  Jornandes  and  Procopius. 

t  "  Our  historians  have  described,  in  an  eloquent  and  pompous  style,  the 
different  and  various  peregrinations  of  the  Danaans,  informing  us  that  they 
resided,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  in  the  northern  parts  of  Germany,  to 
wit,  in  the  cities  of  Falia,  Goria,  Finnia,  and  Muria,  and  spoke  the  German 
language."— O^y^ia. 

With  that  spirit  of  unfairness  which  but  too  much  pervades  his  writings. 
Dr.  Ledwich  refers  to  this  passage  as  containing  O'Flaherty'g  own  opinions 
upon  the  subject :— "  O'Flaherty  allows,"  he  says,  "  that  they  spoke  the  Ger- 
man or  Teutonic,  and  inhabited  the  cities  Falia,  Goria,  &c.  in  the  north  of 
Germany." 

§  The  same  division  of  opinion  which  prevails  in  England  on  this  question 
exists  also  among  the  modern  Belgians  themselves,  as  may  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  different  articles  in  the  M^moires  de  I'Acad^mie  de  Bruxelles.  See, 
for  instance,  Memoire  sur  la  Religion  des  Peuples  de  Vancienne  Belgiqne,  par 
M.  des  Roches,  (de  l'ann6  1773,)  throughout  the  whole  of  which  the  learned 
author  takes  for  granted  the  Teutonic  lineage  of  the  Belgse,  treats  of  them 
as  a  wholly  distinct  race  from  the  Gauls,  and  applies  to  the  ancestors  of  his 
countrymen  all  that  Tacitus  has  said  of  the  Germans.  In  speaking  of  the 
days  of  the  week,  as  having  been  named  after  .some  of  the  northern  gods,  M. 
des  Roches  says  :— "Ces  jours  sont  ais6s  u  reconnoitre  par  les  nom,  qui  les 
d6signent  en  Flamand ;  sur-tout  si  on  les  compare  u  la  langue  Anglo-Saxone, 
sceur  de  la  notre,  et  aux  autres  langues  septentrionales."    On  the  other  hand, 


88  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Independently  of  all  this  testimony  of  the  Bards,  we  have 
also  the  authentic  evidence  of  Ptolemy's  map, — showing  how 
early,  from  the  north  of  Belgium  and  the  shores  of  the  German 
Ocean,  adventurous  tribes  had  found  their  way  to  the  Eastern 
Irish  coasts.  It  has  been  asserted,  rather  dogmatically,  by 
some  Irish  writers,  that  no  descent  from  Denmark  or  Norway 
upon  Ireland,  no  importation  of  Scandian  blood  into  that  island, 
can  be  admitted  to  have  taken  place  before  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century.*  How  far  this  assertion  is  founded,  a  more 
fitting  opportunity  will  occur  for  considering,  when  I  come  to 
treat  of  the  later  Danish  invasions.  It  may  at  present  suffice 
to  remark,  that  traces  of  intercourse  with  the  nations  of  the 
Baltic,  as  well  friendly  f  as  hostile  J,  are  to  be  found,  not  only 
in  the  Irish  annals  for  some  centuries  before  St.  Patrick,  but 
also  in  the  poems,  chronicles,  and  histories  of  those  northern 
nations  themselves.  Combining  these  circumstances  with  all 
that  is  known  concerning  the  migratory  incursions  to  which, 
a  few  centuries  before  our  era,  so  many  of  the  countries  of  Eu- 
rope were  subject  from  the  tribes  inhabiting  the  coasts  of  the 
Baltic  and  Germanic  seas,  it  appears  highly  probable  that  the 
Scoti  were  a  branch  of  the  same  Scythic  swarm ;  and  that, 
having  gained  a  settlement  in  Ireland,  they  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing under  their  dominion  both  the  old  Hiberionaces — as  St. 
Patrick  styles  the  original  population — and  those  other  foreign 
colonies,  by  whom,  in  succession,  the  primitive  inhabitants  had 
been  conquered. 

Among  the  various  other  hypotheses  devised  by  difterent 
writers  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  Scots,  and  the  very  im- 

in  a  prize  essay  of  M.  du  Jardiu,  1773,  we  find  the  following  passage:— 
"Priusquam  in  Gallias  Romani  transissent,  Belgae  omnes,  ut  qui  origine 
Celtffi,  Celtice  loquebantur." 

*  Dr  O'Connor,  Wood,  &.c. 

t  See  the  Annals  of  Tigernach,  a.  d.  79,  where  he  notices  the  grief  of  the 
monarch  Lugad  for  the  death  of  his  queen,  who  was  the  daughter  of  the 
King  of  Lochland,  or  Denmark.  Alliances  of  the  same  nature  recur  in  the 
second  century,  when  we  find  the  monarch  Tuathal  and  his  son  Feidlim  both 
married  to  the  daughters  of  Finland  kings.  "  By  these  marriages,"  says  the 
author  of  the  Dissertations  on  Irish  History,  "  we  see  what  close  intercourse 
the  Scots  held,  in  the  second  century,  with  the  nations  bordering  on  the 
Baltic."— Sect.  5. 

In  translating  the  above  record  of  Tigernach,  the  Rev.  Dr.  O'Connor  has 
rather  suspiciously  substituted  King  of  the  Saxons  for  King  of  the  Danes. 
•  X  It  apppears  from  Saxo  Grammaticus  (Hist.  Dan.  lib.  8.)  that  already,  in 
the  fourth  century,  some  Danish  chieftains,  whom  he  names,  had  been 
engaged  in  piratical  incursions  upon  the  Irish  coasts.  Here  again  Doctor 
O'Connor  has  substituted  Saxons  for  Danes  ;  and  it  is  difficult  not  to  agree 
with  Mr.  D' Alton,  who  has  pointed  out  these  rather  unworthy  misquota- 
tions, (Essay,  Period  1.  sect.  1.)  that  they  were  designed  to  "  favour  the 
reverend  doctor's  system  of  there  being  no  Danes  in  Ireland  previous  to  the 
ninth  century." 


ORIGIN    OF    THE    NAME    SCOTS.  89 

portant  part  played  by  them  in  Ireland,  there  is  not  one  that 
explains,  even  plausibly,  the  peculiar  circumstances  that  mark 
the  course  of  their  history.  According  to  Richard,  the  monk 
of  Westminister,  and  his  ready  copyist,  Whitaker,  the  Irish 
Scots  were  no  other  than  those  ancient  Britons,  who,  taking 
flight  on  the  first  invasion  of  their  country  by  the  Belgse,  about 
350  years  before  the  Christian  era,  passed  over  into  the  neigh- 
bouring island  of  Ireland,  and  there,  being  joined,  after  an  in- 
terval of  250  years,  by  a  second  body  of  fugitive  Britons*,  took 
the  name  of  Scuites,  or  Scots,  meaning  the  Wanderers,  or 
Refugees.  This  crude  and  vague  conjecture,  enlisted  by  Whit- 
aker in  aid  of  his  favourite  object  of  proving  Ireland  to  have 
drawn  its  population  exclusively  from  Britain,  has  no  one  feature 
either  of  authority  or  probability  to  recommend  it.  By  Pin- 
kerton.  Wood,  and  others,  it  is  held  that  the  Belgse  were  the 
warlike  race  denominated  Scots  by  the  Irish ;  but  the  whole 
course  of  our  early  history  runs  counter  to  this  conjecture, — 
the  Belgee  and  Scoti,  though  joining  occasionally  as  allies  in 
the  field,  being  represented,  throughout,  as  distinct  races.  Even 
down  to  modern  times,  there  are  mentioned  instances  of  fami- 
lies, in  Gal  way  and  Sligo,  claiming  descent  from  the  Belgic 
race,  as  wholly  distinct  from  the  Milesian  or  Scotic.f 

It  cannot  but  be  regarded  as  a  remarkable  result,  that  while, 
as  the  evidence  adduced  strongly  testifies,  so  many  of  the 
foreign  tribes  that  in  turn  possessed  this  island  were  Gothic, 
the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  itself,  its  language,  character,  and 
institutions,  should  have  remained  so  free  from  change]:,  that 
even  the  conquering  tribes  themselves  should,  one  after  another, 

♦It  was  then,  Whitaker  says,  they  first  "incorporated  themselves  into 
one  society."  The  details  of  this  notable  scheme,  which  supposes  so  large 
and  important  a  body  of  people  to  have  waited  250  years  to  be  incorporated 
and  nam  "!,  are  to  be  found  in  the  History  of  Manchester,  book  i.  chap.  12. 
sect.  4. 

t "  Lastly,  they  (the  Belgians)  settled  in  Moy-Sachnoly,  at  this  day  Hy- 
niania,  in  the  county  of  Galway,  after  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick,  and  there 
O'Layn,  and,  in  the  county  Sligo,  O'Beunachan,  to  our  times  the  proprietor 
of  a  very  handsome  estate,  look  on  themselves  as  their  real  descendants." 
Ogygia,  part  iii.  chap.  12. 

I  "  In  the  Irish  tongue,"  says  O'Brien,  "  the  Celtic  predominates  over  all 
other  mixtures,  not  only  of  the  old  Spanish,  but  also  of  the  Scandinavian 
and  other  Scytho-German  dialects,  though  Ireland  anciently  received  three 
or  four  different  colonies,  or  rather  swarms  of  adventurers,  from  those  quar- 
ters." {Preface  to  Dictionary.)  One  of  the  causes  he  assigns  for  the  slight 
eftect  produced  upon  the  language  by  such  infusions  is,  that  "  these  foreign 
adventurers  and  sea-rovers  were  under  the  necessity  of  begging  wives  from 
the  natives,  and  the  necessary  consequence  of  this  mixture  and  alliance  was 
that  they,  or  at  latest  their  children,  lost  their  own  original  language,  and 
spoke  no  other  than  that  of  the  nation  they  mixed  with; — which  was  ex- 
actly the  case  with  the  first  English  settlers  in  Ireland,  who  soon  became 
mere  Irishmen  both  in  their  language  and  manners." 

8* 


90  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

have  become  mingled  with  the  general  mass,  leaving  only  in 
those  few  Teutonic  words,  which  are  found  mixed  up  with 
the  native  Celtic,  any  vestige  of  their  once  separate  exist- 
ence. 

The  fact  evidently  is,  that  long  before  the  period  when  these 
Scy thic  invaders  first  began  to  arrive,  there  had  already  poured 
from  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  into  the  country,  an  abundant 
Celtic  population,  which,  though  but  too  ready,  from  the  want 
of  concert  and  coalition,  which  has  ever  characterized  that 
race,  to  fall  a  weak  and  easy  prey  to  successive  bands  of  ad- 
venturers, was  yet  too  numerous,  as  well  as  too  deeply  imbued 
with  another  strong  Celtic  characteristic,  attachment  to  old 
habits  and  prejudices,  to  allow  even  conquerors  to  innovate 
materially  either  on  their  language  or  their  usages.  From  this 
unchangeableness  of  the  national  character  it  has  arisen,  that 
in  the  history  of  no  other  country  in  Europe  do  periods  far 
apart,  and  separated  even  by  ages,  act  as  mirrors  to  each  other 
so  vividly  and  faithfully.  At  a  comparatively  recent  era  of  her 
annals,  when  brought  unresistingly  under  the  dominion  of  the 
English,  her  relations  to  her  handful  of  foreign  rulers  were 
again  nearly  the  same,  and  again  the  result  alike  to  victors 
and  to  vanquished  was  for  a  long  period  such  as  I  have  above 
described. 

It  has  been  already  observed  that,  in  the  obscurity  which 
envelopes  their  name  and  origin,  the  destiny  of  the  Scots  re- 
sembles closely  that  of  another  people  not  less  remarkable  in 
the  history  of  the  British  Isles,  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Picts ;  and  as,  according  to  the  Irish  traditions,  the  Scots  and 
Picts  made  their  appearance  in  these  western  regions  about 
the  same  period,  the  history  of  the  latter  of  the  two  colonies 
may  help  to  throw  some  light  on  that  of  its  Scotic  neighbours. 
With  the  account  given  by  the  Bardic  historians  of  the  Picts 
sailing  in  quest  of  a  settlement  in  these  seas,  and  resting  for 
a  time  in  the  south  of  Ireland  on  their  way,  the  statement  of 
Bede  on  the  subject  substantially  agrees* ;  and  while  the  Bards 

♦  "  It  happened  that  the  nation  of  the  Picts  coming  into  the  ocean  from 
Scythia,  as  is  reported,  in  a  few  long  ships,  the  winds  driving  them  about 
beyond  all  the  borders  of  Britain,  arrived  in  Ireland,  and  put  into  the  north- 
ern coasts  thereof,  and  finding  the  nation  of  the  Scots  there,  requested  to  be 
allowed  to  settle  among  them,  but  could  not  obtain  it."— JEccZesiasi.  Hist. 
book  i.  chap.  1.  In  Bede's  account  of  the  region  from  whence  they  came,  tho 
Saxon  Chronicle,  Geoffrey  Monmouth,  and  all  the  ancient  English  historiaiis 
concur.  The  following  passage  also  of  Tacitus  tells  strongly  in  favour  of  the 
same  opinion  :  "  Rutilae  Caledoniam  habitantium  comas,  magni  artus,  Ger- 
manicam  originem  asseverant."— .ySo-ric.  cap.  11.  Attempts  have  been  made 
to  get  rid  of  the  weight  of  this  authority  by  a  most  unfair  interpretation  of  a 
passage  which  follows  in  the  same  chapter,  and  which  applies  evidently  only 


THE    SCOTS    AND    PICTS.  91 

represent  this  people  as  coming  originally  from  Thrace,  the 
venerable  historian  expressly  denominates  them  a  Sythic  peo- 
ple. It  would,  therefore,  appear,  that  the  Scots  and  the  Picts 
were  both  of  northern  race,  and,  most  probably,  both  from  the 
same  hive  of  hardy  adventurers  who  were  then  pouring  forth 
their  predatory  swarms  over  Europe. 

That  the  Picts  were  the  original  inhabitants  of  North  Britain, 
and  the  same  people  with  the  Caledonians,  seems  now  univer- 
sally admitted ;  and  among  the  various  opinions  held  as  to  their 
origin,  the  conjecture  of  Camden  that  they  were  but  Britons 
under  another  name, — some  indigenous  to  that  region,  others 
driven  thither  by  the  terror  of  the  Roman  arms, — has  been 
hitherto  the  opinion  most  generally  received.  It  is  to  be 
recollected,  however,  that  Camden,  in  pronouncing  the  Picts  to 
liave  been  Britons,  took  for  granted  that  the  ancient  Britons 
were  the  same  people  with  the  Welsh, — thereby  confounding 
two  races  which,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  were  wholly 
distinct.  The  extraction  claimed  by  the  Welsh  themselves, 
and,  as  it  appears,  on  no  insutFicient  grounds,  from  those  ancient 
Cimbri,  whose  martial  virtue  the  pen  of  Tacitus  has  immor- 
talized, at  once  distinguishes  their  race  from  that  of  the  first 
inhabitants  of  Britain,  who  were,  it  is  generally  allowed,  pure 
Celts  or  Gael ;  while  the  Cimbri,  who  lent  their  name  to  that 
northern  Chersonesus,  from  whence  the  Teutonic  tribes  inun- 
dated Europe,  were  themselves  no  less  decidedly  Teutons.* 

With  respect  to  the  languages  of  the  two  races,  the  radical 
differences  f  between  the  Gaelic  and  the  Cumraig  have  been, 

to  those  inhabitants  of  Britain,  who  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Gaula 
— "  proximi  Gallis."  In  speaking  of  this  portion  of  the  British  population, 
the  historian  says,  "  la  universum  tamen  aestinianti,  Gallos  vicinum  solum 
occupasse  credibile."  To  suppose  that  by  the  expletive  phrase  "  in  univer- 
sum," so  d  liberate  a  writer  as  Tacitus  could  have  meant  to  retract  or  over- 
turn an  opinion  expressed  so  decidedly  but  a  few  lines  before,  is  a  stretch  of 
interpretation,  upon  which  only  the  sturdy  spirit  of  system  could  have  ven- 
tured. 

*  See  Dissertation  prefixed  by  Warton  to  his  History  of  Poetry,  where  he 
pronounces  the  Cimbri  to  have  been  a  Scandinavian  tribe. 

t  The  first  person  who  ventured  to  question  the  supposed  affinity  between 
the  Gaelic  and  Cambrian  languages  was  Dr.  Percy,  the  Bishop  of  Dromore, 
in  his  Preface  to  Mallet's  Northern  Antiquities.  "  To  confess  my  own 
opinion,"  he  says,  "  I  cannot  think  they  are  equally  derived  from  one  com- 
mon Celtic  stock."  The  same  writer  ventured  also  to  intimate  tlie  true  rea- 
son of  the  wide  diflfcrence  between  these  languages.  "  That  the  Cimbri  of 
Marius  were  not  a  Celtic  but  German  or  Gothic  people,  is  an  opinion  that 
may  be  supported  with  no  slight  argument."  A  learned  Welshman,  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Roberts,  thus  decisively  follows  up  and  confirms  the  bishop's  views. 
'  Since  the  languages  of  the'Cymry  and  Gael  are  perfectly  distinct,  they  must 
be  distinct  nations;  and  if  the  distinction  had  been  cautiously  attended  to, 
much  confusion,  both  in  history  and  etymology,  would  have  been  avoided." 
TJie  same  writer  adds,  "  Had  Mr.  Whitaker  known  either  the  Welsh  or 


92  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

by  more  than  one  intelligent  Welshman,  admitted  and  demoa- 
strated ;  while  no  less  eminent  Irish  philologers  have  arrived 
at  exactly  the  same  conclusion.  The  words  common  to  the  two 
languages  appear  to  be  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the  close 
intercourse  with  each  other,  which,  in  different  countries  of 
Europe,  the  Celtic  and  Cimbric  races  are  known  to  have 
maintained. 

For  another  fact  illustrative  of  the  true  history  of  the  Cymry, 
we  are  indebted  also  to  a  learned  Welsh  antiquary,  who  has 
shown  by  the  evidence  of  those  undying  memorials,  the  names 
of  rivers,  headlands,  and  mountains,  that  another  race  had  pre- 
ceded the  Welsh  in  the  possession  of  that  country, — the  words 
wedded,  from  time  immemorial,  to  her  hills  and  waters,  being 
all  Gaelic  or  Irish.*  The  original  seat,  therefore,  of  the  Cymry 
in  Britain,  must  be  sought  tor,  it  is  clear,  elsewhere ;  and  if 
there  be  any  region  where  similar  traces  of  ancient  inhabitancy 
are  found,  where  the  rivers  and  hills,  the  harbours  and  prom- 
ontories, are  all  invested  with  Welsh  names,  we  may  there 
fix,  without  hesitation,  the  site  of  their  primitive  abode.  This 
region,  the  mountain  territory  of  the  ancient  Picts  supplies. f 
In  the  parts  of  North  Britain  once  inhabited  by  that  mysterious 
people,  the  language  of  the  Cymry  is  still  alive  in  the  names 

Gaelic  language  well,  I  am  persuaded  he  would  have  been  very  far  from  sup- 
posing that  the  Cymry  and  Gaol  were  the  same  people,  for  he  would  hav« 
found  that  either  of  their  languages  is  of  no  more  use  to  the  understanding 
of  the  other,  than  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  Latin  to  the  understanding  of 
the  Greek."  While  such  is  the  view  taken  by  a  learned  W^elshman  respect- 
ing the  relationship  between  the  two  languages,  a  no  less  learned  Irish 
scholar  thus  expresses  himself  on  the  subject :— "  The  Gomeracg  spoken  at 
this  day  in  North  Wales,  and  tlie  Gaelic  spoken  in  Ireland,  are  as  different 
in  their  syntactic  constructions  as  any  two  tongues  can  be."  {O'Connor,  Dis- 
sert, on  Hist,  of  Scotland.)  Sir  W.  Betham  asserts  still  more  decidedly  the 
radical  difference  between  the  two  languages,  ailopting  the  same  views  re- 
specting the  origin  of  the  \Wlsh  people,  which  I  have  above  endeavoured  to 
enforce.  See  his  Gael  and  the  Cimbri  for  some  curious  illustrations  of  this 
point. 

*  Lhnyd,  Preface  to  Geography :  already  referred  to,  chapter  1.,  for  the 
same  fact. 

fSee,  for  a  long  li.st  of  these  Welsh  denominations  of  places,  Chalmers's 
Caledonia,  vol.  i.  chap.  1.—"  In  the  laborious  work  of  Mr.  Chalmers,"  says 
Dr.  Pritchard,  "  there  is  a  collection  of  such  terms,  which  seems  amply  sufii- 
rient  to  satisfy  the  moat  incredulous,  that  the  dialect  of  the  Cambro-Britons 
was,  at  one  period,  the  prevailing  idiom  on  the  north-eastern  parts  of  Scot- 
land." 

A  few  instances  are  mentioned  by  Chalmers,  in  which  the  names  given  by 
the  Picts  or  Welsh  were  superseded  by  their  Scoto-Irish  successors.  Thus  it 
appears  from  charters  of  the  twelflh  century,  that  Inve7'  was  substituted  by 
the  Scots  for  the  Mer  of  the  previous  inhabitants  ;  David  I.  having  granted 
K)  the  monastery  of  May  "/awer-in  qui  fuit  Merin  :"  and  the  influx  of  the 
Nethy  into  the  Em,  whose  familiar  name  had  been  jiber-nethy,  was  changed 
by  the  later  people  into  Invcr-ncthy,  and  both  these  names  it  is  added,  Ptill 
remain. 


IDENTITY    OF    THE    PICTS    AND    WELSH.  93 

of  those  permanent  features  of  nature  which  alone  defy  ob- 
livion, and  tell  the  story  of  the  first  dwellers  to  all  the  races 
that  succeed  them. 

Taking  these,  and  some  other  circumstances  that  shall, 
presently  be  mentioned,  into  consideration,  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible, I  think,  «to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  people  called 
Picts  were  the  progenitors  of  the  present  Welsh, — being 
themselves  a  branch  of  that  Ciinbric  stock  from  whence  all 
the  traditions  of  the  latter  people  represent  them  to  have  been 
derived ; — and  that,  instead  of  the  Welsh  having  become  the 
Picts,  as  was  supposed  by  Camden  and  others,  the  result  of  the 
evidence  shows,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  Picts  became  the 
Welsh. 

Obscure  and  involved  as  are  the  records  of  British  history 
for  some  ages  after  the  departure  of  the  Romans,  there  can 
yet  enough  be  discerned,  through  the  darkness,  to  enable  us  to 
track  the  course  of  this  warlike  people,  in  their  resistless  career 
towards  the  south,  as  well  as  in  that  gradual  change  of  name 
which  they  underwent  during  their  progress.  The  entire  ab- 
dication of  the  island  by  the  Romans  was  evidently  the  crisis 
of  which  the  restless  Picts  availed  themselves  to  carry  their 
arms,  with  a  view  to  permanent  conquest,  into  regions  they 
had  before  but  temporarily  devastated.  Breaking  through  the 
long  guarded  frontier,  they  took  possession,  without  any  struggle, 
of  all  the  midland  provinces,  reaching  from  the  wall  of  North- 
umberland to  the  friths  of  Forth  and  Clyde,  and  there  estab- 
lished that  Regnum  Cumbrense,  or  Kingdom  of  Strat-Clyde*, 
in  whose  mixed  population — composed,  as  it  was,  of  all  the 
tribes  of  North  Britain, — their  old  distinctive  name  of  Picts 
began  first  to  be  unsettled  and  disused.     Here,  however,  they 

*  Pinkerton  vainly  endeavours  to  make  a  distinction  between  the  Regnum 
Cumbrense  and  the  Kingdom  on  the  Clyde.  {Enquiry  into  Hist,  of  Scotland, 
part  ii.  chap.  5.)  Their  identity  has  been  clearly  proved  both  by  Innes  (vol. 
i.  chap.  2.  art.  2.)  and  Chalmers,  book  ii.  chap.  2. 

The  author  of  a  late  popular  history,  Thierry  {Hist,  de  la  Covquete  de  VAn- 
gleierre),  has  so  far  confounded  the  localities  of  the  ancient  Welsh  history 
as  to  mistake  Cumbria,  the  present  county  of  Cumberland,  for  Wales.  Speak- 
ing of  the  Nortliern  Britons,  he  says,  "  Les  fugitifs  de  ces  contr6es  avoient 
gagne  le  grand  asile  du  pays  de  Galles,  oubien  Tangle  de  terre  h6riss6  de 
montagnes  que  baigne  la  mer  au  Golfe  de  Solway." 

That  the  Picts,  towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  formed  the  main  part 
of  the  population  of  this  kingdom,  appears  from  a  statement  in  the  Life  of 
St.  Kentigern,  by  Jocehn,  which  shows  that  Galloway  was,  at  this  period, 
in  the  possession  of  the  Picts ;  and  it  was  probably  about  this  time  they 
began  to  be  known  by  that  name  of  Galwejenses,  which  continued  to  be  ap- 
plied to  them  for  many  centuries  after.  (See  Innes,  vol.  i.  book  1.  chap.  2.) 
While  thus  the  Picts  were  called  Galwejenses,  we  find  Matthew  of  West- 
minster, at  a  later  period,  giving  the  same  name  to  the  Welsh ;  thereby  iden- 
tifying, in  so  far,  the  latter  people  with  the  Picts. 


94  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


I 


continued  to  maintain  themselves,  against  all  the  efforts  of  the 
Skxons  to  dispossess  them ;  and,  under  the  German  name  c^> 
the  Walli  or  Welsh,  bestowed  upon  them  by  the  invaders  ■| 
,  may  be  traced  as  acting"  a  distinguished  part  in  the  affairs  dP 
Britain  for  many  centuries  after. 

To  this  epoch  of  their  northern  kingdom,  all  the  traditions 
of  the  modern  Welsh  refer  for  their  most  boasted  antiquities, 
and  favourite  themes  of  romance.f  The  name  of  their  chival- 
rous hero,  Arthur,  still  lends  a  charm  to  much  of  the  topogra- 
phy of  North  Britain ;  and  among  the  many  romantic  traditions 
connected  with  Stirling  Castle,  is  that  of  its  having  once  been 
the  scene  of  the  festivities  of  the  Round  Table.  The  poets 
Aneurin  and  Taliessen,  the  former  born  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  banks  of  the  Clydef,  graced  the  court,  we  are  told,  of 
Urien,  the  king  of  Reged,  or  Cumbria ;  and  the  title  Caledo- 
nius  bestowed  on  the  enchanter  Merlin,  who  was  also  a  native 
of  Strat-Clyde,  sufficiently  attests  his  northern  and  Pictish 
race.  It  may  be  added,  as  another  strong  confirmation  of  the 
identity  between  the  Strat-Clyde  Welsh  and  the  Picts,  that  from 
the  time  of  the  total  defeat  of  the  latter  by  Keneth  Macalpine, 
king  of  the  Scots,  no  further  mention  occurs  of  the  kingdom 
of  Strat-Clyde.  The  traditional  story  of  the  utter  extinction 
of  the  Pictish  people  at  this  period,  so  far  as  to  have  left,  we 
are  told,  not  even  a  vestige  of  their  language,  bears  upon  the 
face  of  it  the  marks  of  legendary  fiction ;  while  the  fact  of 
their  ancient  title  of  Picts  having  been,  about  this  time, 
eclipsed  by  their  new  designation  of  Walli,  accounts  satisfac- 
torily for  the  origin  and  general  belief  of  such  a  fable. 

With  respect  to  the  period  at  which  this  people  may  be  sup- 
posed ta  have  fixed  themselves  in  Wales,  a  series  of  migra- 

*  The  name,  says  Camden,  by  which  "  the  Saxon  conqueror  called  foreign- 
ers, and  every  thing  that  was  strange." 

t  Most  of  the  great  Welsh  pedigrees,  too,  commence  their  line  from  princes 
of  the  Cumbrian  Kingdom,  and  the  archaiologist  Lhuyd  himself  boasts  of  his 
descent  from  ancestors  in  the  "  province  of  Ileged  in  Scotland,  in  the  fourth 
century,  before  the  Saxons  came  into  Britain." — Pref.  to  ^rclimologia. 

There  is,  however,  visibly  and  fropi  motives  by  no  means  unintelligible, 
an  unwillingness,  on  the  part  of  modern  Welsh  historians,  to  bring  much 
into  notice  this  northern  seat  of  Cymbric  enterprise  and  renown.  For  the 
name  of  Cumbria  that  of  Reged  is  usually  substituted,  and  the  founders  of 
their  kingdom  in  Wales  are  alleged  to  have  been  the  sons  of  a  northern 
prince,  named  Cynetha,  or  Cenetha  (evidently  their  Scottish  king  Kenneth), 
who,  "  leaving  Cumberland  and  some  neighbouring  countries,  where  they 
ruled,  to  the  government  of  one  of  their  family,  retired  into  North  Wales, 
their  grandmother's  country,  and  seated  themselves  in  the  several  divisions 
of  it,  as  their  names  left  on  those  places  do  to  this  day  testify."— i2a«;Zan(i's 
Mona  Antiqua,  sect.  ii.    See  also  Warrington's  Hist,  of  Wales,  book  i. 

X  The  river  Clyde,  in  North  Wales,  was,  it  is  clear,  named  by  the  new  pos- 
sessors of  that  country,  after  the  Clyde  of  their  old  kingdom  in  Scotland. 


THE   PICTS   IN   THE   NORTH   OF    IRELAND.  95 

tions  thither  from  Cumbria,  at  different  intervals,  have  been 
recorded  by  the  Chroniclers ;  and,  among  others,  it  is  said  that, 
in  the  year  890,  a  body  of  emigrants,  under  the  command  of 
a  chief  named  Constantine,  fought  their  wa,y  through  the 
ranks  of  the  Saxons  to  that  country.  But  their  mam  move- 
ment towards  the  south,  whether  voluntarily,  or  under  pres- 
sure from  the  invader,  must  have  occurred  at  a  much  earlier 
period, — not  more  than  a  century,  probably,  from  the  time  of 
their  first  outbreak  from  their  own  hills ;  as,  before  the  end  of 
the  sixth  age,  they  had  already  possessed  themselves  both 
of  Wales  and  of  Cornwall,  and  established  a  colony,  appa- 
rently by  conquest,  in  the  province  of  Armoric  Gaul. 

Much  more  might  be  added  in  corroboration  of  this  view 
of  the  origin  of  the  Welsh,  but  that  already,  perhaps,  I  have 
dwelt  somewhat  more  diffusely  upon  it  than  may  seem  to  be 
justified  by  the  immediate  object  I  had  in  view,  which  was, 
by  inquiring  into  the  most  probable  history  of  the  Pictish  peo- 
ple of  Britain,  to  gain  some  clue  to  that  of  their  fellow 
Scythians,  the  Scoti  of  Ireland  ;  as  well  as  some  insight  into 
the  race  and  origin  of  those  Cruithene,  or  Painted  Men,  who, 
about  the  same  period,  took  up  their  abode  in  a  part  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Ulster.  With  respect  to  the  Scoti,  the  probability 
of  their  having  been  a  Scandinavian  people*  is  considerably 
strengthened  by  the  weight  of  evidence  and  authority  which 
pronounces  the  Picts  to  have  been  a  colony  from  the  same 
quarter,  as  their  joint  history  is  thus  rendered  concurrent  and 
consistent ;  and  it  seems  naturally  to  have  followed  from  the 
success  of  the  former  in  gaining  possession  of  Ireland,  that 
others  of  the  adventurous  rovers  of  the  North  should  try  their 
fortunes  in  the  same  region.  Of  that  detachment  of  Pictish 
adventurers  which  fixed  their  quarters,  as  we  have  said,  in  the 
North  of  Ireland,  there  will  occur  occasions  to  take  some  no- 
tice, in  the  course  of  the  following  pages.  I  shall  here  only 
remark  that,  by  their  intermixture  with  the  primitive  inhabit- 
ants of  the  country,  they  were  doubtless  the  means  of  engraft- 

*  Bishop  Stillingfleet  declares  strongly  in  favour  of  the  opinion  that  the 
Picts  "  were  from  the  same  parts"  as  the  Scots  ;  but  interprets  Bede's  words 
rather  too  favourably  for  his  purpose,  when  he  represents  him  as  saying  that 
"  on  being  carried  by  a  tempest  to  Ireland,  they  found  there  Gentem  Scoto- 
rum,  i.  e.  (adds  the  bishop)  their  countrymen,  the  Scythians."  Among  the 
most  convincing  indications  of  their  having  been  kindred  tribes,  are  those 
deduced  by  Buchanan,  from  their  facility  of  intercourse  on  first  meeting, 
their  mutual  confidence  and  intermarriages,  and  the  amicable  neighbour- 
hood of  their  settlement  afterwards  in  North  Britain.  "  Facile  majores 
Pictorum  Scotis  fuisse  conciliates  puto,  atque  ab  eisdem,  ut  traditur,  adjutos, 
ut  homines  cognates,  ejusdem  fere  linguae  nee  dissimilium  rituum."— Zfwt. 
Scot.  lib.  ii.  27. 


96  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


I 

whicM 
o  larJ 


ing  on  the  native  tongue  those  words  of  Cimbric  origin  whici 
notwithstanding  the  radical  difference  between  the  two  lan3 
guages,  has  given  to  the  Irish  and  the  Welsh  so  imposing  an 
appearance  of  affinity.* 


CHAPTER  VII. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND  FROM  THE  LANDING  OF  THE  SCOTI   COLONY 
ARRIVAL  OF  ST.  PATRICK. 


4 

TOTn 


In  commencing  his  history  of  the  Milesian  or  Scotic  mon- 
archs,  by  far  the  most  trustworthy  of  the  Irish  annalists  in- 
forms us,  "  that  all  the  records  of  the  Scots,  before  the  time  of 
king  Kimbaoth,  are  uncertain."!  This  monarch,  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  senachies,  was  the  seventy-fifth  king  of  Ireland,  and 
the  fifty-seventh  of  the  Milesian  dynasty,  flourished,  as  we 
learn  from  the  same  authorities,  about  300 years  before  Christ: 
but  the  learned  Dr.  O'Connor,  by  whom  the  lists  of  the  an- 
cient kings  have  been  examined  with  a  degree  of  zeal  and 
patience  worthy  of  a  far  better  task,  has  shown  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  regal  lists  of  the  senachies  themselves,  the  reign  of 
Kimbaoth  cannot  be  carried  back  to  a  remoter  date  than  200 
years  before  our  era.  The  reader  who  has  attended,  however, 
to  the  facts  adduced  in  the  foregoing  pages,  proving  how 
groundless  are  the  claims  to  a  remote  antiquity  which  have 
been  advanced  for  the  Scotic  or  Milesian  colony,  will,  I  doubt 
not,  be  of  opinion  that  a  scheme  of  chronology  which  supposes 
the  fifty-sixth  monarch  of  the  Scotic  dynasty  to  have  existed 
200  or  300  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  may  be  got  rid  of 
with  a  much  less  expenditure  of  learning  and  labour  than  it 
has  cost  Dr.  O'Connor,  and  other  such  zealots  in  the  cause  of 
antiquity,  to  establish  and  support  it. 

♦  The  amount  of  this  resemblance  between  the  two  languages  appears  to 
be,  after  all,  but  trifling.  "  There  is,"  says  Mr.  Roberts,  the  intelligent 
Welsh  scholar,  already  quoted,  "  about  one  word  in  fifteen  similar,  but  rarely 
the  same,  in  sound  and  signification,  in  both  languages.  In  the  first  nine 
columns  of  the  Irish  Dictionary,  printed  by  Lhuyd  in  his  Archaeologia,  there 
are  400  words,  of  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  more  than  twenty, 
in  common  to  both  languages,  nor  have  I  succeeded  better  in  several  tnals. 
Moreover,  the  grammatical  structure,  as  to  the  declension  and  construction, 
are  radically  different." — Chronicle  of  the  Kings  of  Britain. 

A  learned  German  glossologist,  Adelung,  is  also  to  be  numbered  among 
those  who  consider  the  Welsh  tongue  to  be  a  descendant  from  that  of  the 
Belgffi,  and  not  from  that  of  the  Celtce. 

*  Tigernach.—"  Omnia  monumenta  Scotorum  usque  Cimbaoth  incerta 
erant."  For  some  account  of  this  annalist,  who  died  a.  d.  1088,  see  Ware's 
Writers.— i?er.  Hibem.  Scrip,  torn.  ii.  &c.  &c. 


HEBER    AND    HEREMON,    SONS    OF    MILESIUS.  97 

Without  entering  at  present,  however,  into  any  further  ex- 
amination of  the  chronological  reckonings  and  regal  lists  of 
the  antiquaries,  or  pointing  out  how  far,  in  spite  of  the  extra- 
vagant dates  assigned  to  them,  the  reality  of  the  events  them- 
selves may  be  relied  upon,  I  shall  proceed  to  lay  before  the 
reader  a  sketch  of  the  history  of  Pagan  Ireland,  from  the 
time  of  the  landing  of  the  Scotic  colony,  to  the  great  epoch 
of  the  conversion  of  the  Irish  to  Christianity  by  St.  Patrick. 
Into  any  of  those  details  of  war  and  bloodshed  which  form  so 
large  a  portion  of  our  annals.  Pagan  as  well  as  Christian,  I 
shall  not  think  it  necessary  to  enter ;  while,  of  the  civil  trans- 
actions, my  object  will  be  to  select  principally  those  which 
appear  to  be  most  sanctioned  by  the  general  consent  of  tradi- 
tion, and  afford,  at  least,  pictures  of  manners,  even  where  they 
may  be  thought  questionable  as  records  of  fact. 

A  decisive  victory  over  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,  the  former 
possessors  of  the  country,  having  transferred  the  sovereignty 
to  Heber  and  Heremon,  the  sons  of  the  Spanish  king  Milesius, 
these  two  brothers  divided  the  kingdom  between  them ;  and 
while  Leinster  and  Munster  were,  it  is  said,  the  portion  as- 
signed to  Heber,  the  younger  brother,  Heremon,  had  for  his 
share  the  provinces  of  Ulster  and  Connaught.  There  was  also 
a  third  brother,  Amergin,  whom  they  appointed  Arch-Bard,  or 
presiding  minister  over  the  respective  departments  of  Law'*", 
Poetry,  Philosophy,  and  Religion.  In  the  divided  sovereignty 
thus  exercised  by  the  family,  may  be  observed  the  rudiments 
of  that  system  of  government  which  prevailed  so  long  among 
tlieir  successors ;  while,  in  the  office  of  the  Arch-Bard  we 
trace  the  origin  of  those  metrical  legislators  and  chroniclers 
who  took  so  prominent  a  part  in  public  affairs  under  all  the 
Scotic  princes. 

In  another  respect,  it  must  be  owned,  the  commencement  of 
the  Milesian  monarchy  was  marked  strongly  by  the  features 
which  but  too  much  characterized  its  whole  course.  A  beau- 
tiful valley,  which  lay  in  the  territories  of  Heremon,  had  been, 
for  some  time,  a  subject  of  dispute  between  the  two  brothersf ; 

*  "  Amerjn;in  was  the  Brehon  of  the  colony,  and  was  also  a  poet  and  philo- 
sopher."— O'Reilly  on  the  Brehon  Laws. 

fThe  particulars  of  this  quarrel  are  thus  stated  by  Keating:—"  The  occa- 
sion of  the  dispute  was  the  possession  of  three  of  the  most  delightful  valleys 
in  the  whole  island.  Two  of  these  lay  in  the  division  of  Heber  Fionn,  and 
he  received  the  profits  of  them  ;  but  his  wife,  being  a  woman  of  great  pride 
and  ambition,  envied  the  wife  of  Heremon  the  enjoyment  of  one  of  those 
delightful  valleys,  and,  therefore,  persuaded  her  husband  to  demaiad  the  valley 
of  Heremon  ;  and,  upon  a  refusal,  to  gain  possession  of  it  by  the  sword  ;  for 
she  passionately  vowed  she  never  would  be  satisfied  till  she  was  called  the 
Queen  of  the  three  most  fruitful  Vallej's  in  the  Island." 

Vol.  I.  9 


98  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

and  their  differences  at  length  kindling  into  animosity,  led  to  a 
battle  between  them  on  the  plains  of  Geisiol,  where  Heber  lost 
his  life,  leaving  Heremon  sole  possessor  of  the  kingdom.  Even 
the  peaceful  profession  of  the  Arch-Poet  Amergin  did  not  ex- 
empt him  from  the  effects  of  the  discord  thus  early  at  work; 
as,  in  a  subsequent  battle,  this  third  son  of  Milesius  fell  also  a 
victim  to  his  brother  Heremon's  sword.* 

To  the  reign  of  Heremon,  the  Bardic  historians  refer  the 
first  coming  of  the  people  called  Picts  into  these  regions. 
Landing  upon  the  eastern  coast  of  Ireland,  they  proposed  to 
establish  themselves  on  the  island ;  but  the  natives,  not  deem- 
ing such  a  settlement  expedient,  informed  them  of  other  islands, 
on  the  north-east,  which  were  uninhabited,  and  where  they 
might  fix  their  abode.  To  this  suggestion  the  Picts  readily 
assented,  but  first  desired  that  some  of  the  Milesian  women 
might  be  permitted  to  accompany  them ;  pledging  themselves 
solemnly  that,  should  they  become  masters  of  that  country  they 
were  about  to  invade,  the  sovereignty  should  be  ever  after 
vested  in  the  descendants  of  the  female  line.f  This  request 
having  been  granted,  the  Pictish  chiefs,  accompanied  by  their 
Milesian  wives,  set  sail  for  the  islands  bordering  on  Scotland, 
and  there  established  their  settlement. 

Passing  over  the  immediate  successors  of  Heremon,  we  meet 
with  but  little  that  is  remarkable  till  we  arrive  at  the  reign  of 
the  idolater  Tighernmas,  who,  while  offering  sacrifice,  at  a 

♦There  are  still  extant  three  poems  attributed  to  this  bard,  one  of  them 
said  to  have  been  written  by  him  while  he  was  coasting  on  the  shores  of 
Ireland.  This  latter  po6m  the  reader  will  find,  together  with  a  brief  outline 
of  its  meaning,  in  Hardiman's  Irish  Minstrelsy,  vol.  ii.  notes.  "  There  still 
remain,"  says  the  enthusiastic  editor,  "  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  three  thou- 
sand years,  fragments  of  these  ancient  bards  (Amergin  and  Lugad,  the  son 
of  Ith),  some  of  which  will  be  found  included  in  the  following  pages,  with 
proofs  of  their  authenticity."— P/e/oce. 

The  following  is  the  account  given  of  the  supposed  poems  of  Amergin  by 
the  learned  editor  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Iberno-Celtic  Society.—"  These 
compositions  are  written  in  the  Bearla  Feini,  and  accompanied  with  an  in- 
terlined gloss,  without  which  they  would  be  unintelligible  to  modern  Irish 
scholars.  The  gloss  itself  requires  much  study  to  understand  it  perfectly,  as 
the  language  is  obsolete,  and  must  in  many  places  be  read  from  bottom  to 
top." 

tThis  matrimonial  compact  of  the  Picts  is  thus,  in  a  spirit  far  worse  than 
absurd,  misrepresented  by  O'Halloran  :— "  They,  at  the  same  time,  requested 
wives  from  Heremon,  engaging,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that  not  only 
then,  but  for  ever  after,  if  they  or  their  successors  should  have  issue  by  a 
British,  and  again  by  an  Irish  woman,  that  the  issue  of  this  last  only  should 
be  capable  of  succeeding  to  the  inheritance  !  and  which  law  continued  in 
force  to  the  days  of  Venerable  Bede,  i.  e.  about  2000  years  !  a  mark  of  such 
striking  distinction  that  it  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the  history  of  any  other 
nation  under  the  sun  !"— Vol.  ii.  chap.  4. 

This  policy  of  deducing  the  royal  succession  through  the  female  line,  not 
through  the  male,  was  always  retained  by  the  Picts. 


DIFFERENT    CLASSES    OF    SOCIETY.  99 

great  popular  convention,  to  the  monstrous  idol,  Crom-Cruach, 
was,  together  with  the  vast  multitude  around  him,  miraculously 
destroyed.  During  the  reign  of  this  king,  gold  is  said  to  have 
been,  for 'the  first  time,  worked  in  Ireland;  a  mine  of  that 
metal  having  been  discovered  in  the  woods  to  the  east  of  the 
river  Liffey.* 

In  the  reign  of  Achy,  who  was  the  immediate  successor  of 
Tighernmas,  a  singular  law  was  enacted,  regulating  the  exact 
number  of  colours  by  which  the  garments  of  the  different 
classes  of  society  were  to  be  distinguished.!  Plebeians  and 
soldiers  were,  by  this  ordinance,  to  wear  but  a  single  colour ; 
military  officers  of  an  inferior  rank,  two ;  commanders  of  bat- 
talions, three;  the  keepers  of  houses  of  hospitality]:,  four;  the 
nobility  and  military  knights,  five  ;  and  the  Bards  and  Ollamhs, 
who  were  distinguished  for  learning,  six,  being  but  one  colour 
less  than  the  number  worn  by  the  reigning  princes  themselves. 
These  regulations  are  curious;  not  only  as  showing  the  high 
station  allotted  to  learning  and  talent,  among  the  qualifications 
for  distinction,  but  as  presenting  a  coincidence  rather  remark- 
able with  that  custom  of  patriarchal  times,  which  made  a  gar- 
ment of  many  colours  the  appropriate  dress  of  kings'  daughters 
and  princes.^ 

For  a  long  period,  indeed,  most  of  the  Eastern  nations  re- 
tained both  the  practice  of  dividing  the  people  into  different 
castes  and  professions,  and  also,  as  appears  from  the  regulations 
of  Giamschid,  king  of  Persiajj,  this  custom  of  distinguishing 

*"At  Fothart,"  says  Simon,  "near  the  river  Liffey,  in  the  county  of 
Wicklow,  where  gold,  silver,  copper,  lead,  and  iron,  have  of  late  years  been 
found  out." — Simon  on  Irish  Coins. 

t  A  similar  fancy  for  party-coloured  dresses  existed  among  the  Celts  of 
Gaul ;  and  Diodorus  describes  that  people  as  wearing  garments  flowered 

with  all  varieties  of  colour — "x^^wjxaai   -KavroSa-rrois  SirjvBiantvovs Lib.  5. 

The  part  of  their  dress  which  they  called  braccte,  or  breeches,  was  so  named 
from  its  being  plaided ;  the  word  brae  signifying  in  Celtic  any  thing  speckled 
or  party-coloured.  The  historian  Tacitus,  in  describing  Ctecina  as  dressed 
in  the  Gaulish  fashion,  represents  him  with  breeches,  or  trowsers,  and  a 
plaid  mantle :— "  Versicolore  sago,  braccas,  tegmen  barbarum  indutus."— 
Hint.  lib.  ii.  cap.  20. 

I  An  order  of  men  appointed  by  the  state,  and  endowed  with  lands,  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  constantly  open  house,  and  giving  entertainment  to  all 
travellers  in  proportion  to  their  rank.  These  officers  are  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  Brehon  laws;  and,  among  other  enactments  respecting  them, 
it  is  specified  that  each  Bruigh  shall  keep  in  his  house,  for  the  amusement  of 
travellers,  Taibhle  Fioch-thoille,  or  chess-boards. 

§  Thus,  Jacob  made  Joseph  a  coat  of  many  colours,  (Gen.  xxxvii.  3.) ;  and 
Tamar(2Sam.  xiii.  18.)  "had  a  garment  of  divers  colours,  for  with  such 
robes  were  the  king's  daughters  that  were  virgins  apparelled." 

|(  Saadi  veut  aussi,  que  ce  prince  ait  non  seulement  divis6  les  hommes  en 
plusieurs  6tats  et  professions,  mais  qu'il  les  ait  encore  distingu6s  par  des 
habits  et  par  des  coiffures  differentes."— J9'.ffflrieZo«. 


100  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  different  classes  by  appropriate  dresses.  From  the  party- 
coloured  garments  worn  by  the  ancient  Scots,  or  Irish,  is  de- 
rived the  national  fashion  of  the  plaid,  still  prevailing  among 
their  descendants  in  Scotland. 

Among  the  numerous  kings  that,  in  this  dim  period  of  Irish 
history,  pass  like  shadows  before  our  eyes,  the  Royal  Sage, 
Ollamh  Fodhla*,  is  almost  the  only  one  who,  from  the  strong 
light  of  tradition  thrown  round  him,  stands  out  as  a  being  of 
historical  substance  and  truth.  It  would  serve  to  illustrate  the 
nature  and  extent  of  tlie  evidence  with  which  the  world  is 
sometimes  satisfied,  to  collect  together  the  various  celebrated 
names  which  are  received  as  authentic  on  the  strength  of  tra- 
dition alonef;  and  few,  perhaps,  could  claim  a  more  virtual 
title  to  this  privilege  than  the  great  legislator  of  the  ancient 
Irish,  Ollamh  Fodhla.  In  considering  the  credit,  however,  that 
may  safely  be  attached  to  the  accounts  of  this  celebrated  per- 
sonage, we  must  dismiss  wholly  from  our  minds  the  extravagant 
antiquity  assigned  to  him|  by  the  seanachies ;  and  as  it  has 
been  shown  Siat  the  date  of  the  dynasty  itself,  of  which  he 
was  so  distinguished  an  ornament,  cannot,  at  tlie  utmost,  be 
removed  further  back  than  the  second  century  before  our  era, 
whatever  his  fame  may  thus  lose  in  antiquity  it  will  be  found 
to  gain  in  probability ;  since,  as  we  shall  see  when  I  come  to 
treat  of  the  credibility  of  the  Irish  annals,  the  epoch  of  this 
monarch,  if  not  within  the  line  to  which  authentic  history  ex- 
tends, is,  at  least,  not  very  far  beyond  it. 

Some  of  the  most  useful  institutions  of  Ollamh  Fodhla  are 
said  to  have  but  a  short  time  survived  himself  But  the  act 
which  rendered  his  reign  an  important  era  in  legislation  was 
the  establishment  of  the  Great  Fes,  or  Triennial  Convention  at 
Tara,  an  approach  so  far  to  representative  government  that,  in 
these  periodical  assemblies,  the  leading  persons  of  the  three 
orders  of  whom  the  political  community  consisted, — that  is  to 
say,  the  Monarch,  the  Druids  or  Ollamhs,  and  the  Plebeians, — 

*  Pronounced  Ollav  Folia.  This  quiescence  of  many  of  the  consonants  in 
our  Irish  names,  render  them  far  more  agreeable  to  the  ear  than  to  the  eye. 
Thus,  the  formidable  name  of  Tigernach,  our  great  annalist,  is  sofffined,  in 
pronunciation,  into  Tierna. 

t  Among  the  most  signal  instances,  perhaps,  is  that  of  the  poet  Orpheus, 
who,  notwithstanding  the  decidedly-expressed  opinion  both  of  Aristotle  and 
Cicero,  that  no  such  poet  ever  existed,  still  continiies,  and  will  of  course  for 
ever  continue,  to  be  regarded  as  a  real  historical  personage. 

I  In  fixing  the  period  of  this  monarch's  reign,  chronologers  have  been 
widely  at  variance.  While  some  place  it  no  less  than  1316  years  before  the 
Christian  era,  (Thady  Roddy,  MSS.)  Plowden  makes  it  950  years,  (Hist.  Re- 
view, prelim,  chap.)  O'Flaherty  between  700  and  800,  and  the  author  of  the 
Dissertations,  &.c.  about  600.    (Sect.  4.) 


OLLAMH    FODHLA.  101 

were  convened  for  the  purpose  of  passing  such  laws  and  regu- 
lations as  the  public  good  seemed  to  require.*  In  the  presence 
of  these  assemblies,  too,  the  different  records  of  the  kingdom 
were  examined ;  whatever  materials  for  national  history  the 
provincial  annals  supplied,  were  here  sifted  and  epitomized, 
and  the  result  entered  in  the  great  national  Register  called 
the  Psalter  of  Tara.f 

In  a  like  manner,  according  to  the  historian  Ctesias,  who 
drew  his  own  materials  professedly  from  such  sources,  it  was 
enjoined  to  the  Persians,  by  an  express  law,  that  they  should 
write  down  the  annals  of  their  country  in  the  royal  archives. 
In  Ireland  this  practice  of  chronicling  events  continued  to  be 
observed  to  a  late  period ;  and  not  only  at  the  courts  of  the 
different  Kings,  but  even  in  the  family  of  every  inferior  chief- 
tain, a  Seanachie,  or  historian,  formed  always  a  regular  part 
of  the  domestic  establishment.  To  this  recording  spirit,  kept 
alive,  as  it  was,  in  Christian  times,  by  a  succession  of  monastic 
chroniclers,  we  owe  all  those  various  volumes  of  Psalters  and 
Annals  with  which  the  ancient  literature  of  Ireland  abounds. 

The  policy  which  Herodotus  tells  us  was  adopted  among  the 
Egyptians  and  the  Lacedemonians,  of  rendering  employments 
and  offices  hereditary  in  families,  was  also,  from  the  time  of 
Ollamh  Fodhla  down  to  a  very  recent  period,  the  established 
usage  in  Ireland.  This  strange  custom  formed  one  of  the  con- 
trivances of  that  ancient  stationary  system,  which  has  been 
the  means  of  keeping  the  people  of  the  East  and  their  insti- 
tutions so  little  changed  through  all  time.  The  same  principle 
which  led  the  Egyptians  to  prohibit  their  sculptors  and  painters 
from  innovatmg,  even  w4th  a  view  to  improvement,  on  the 
ancient  models  transmitted  to  them,  prompted  them  also  to 
ordain,  as  the  Irish  did  after  them,  that  the  descendants  of  a 
physician|,  for  instance,  or  an  artificer,  should  continue  phy- 

*  So  represented  by  those  zealous  antiquaries  O'Flaherty,  O'Connor,  &c. ; 
but  it  will  be  shown  presently  that,  like  the  Coloni  of  the  Franks  and  the 
Ceorls  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the  plebeians,  under  the  ancient  Irish  govern- 
ment, were  wholly  excluded  from  political  power. 

t  Keating  speaks  of  this  authentic  Register  of  the  Nation  as  extant  in 
his  time  ;  but  O'Connor  says,  "  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  no  con- 
siderable part  of  it  escaped  the  devastations  of  the  Norman  war."  The  fol- 
lowing is  all  that  the  industrious  Bishop  Nicholson  could  learn  of  it:  "What 
is  now  become  of  this  Royal  Monument  is  hard  to  tell ;  for  some  of  our 
moderns  affirm  that  they  have  lately  seen  it,  while  others  as  confidently 
maintain  that  it  has  not  appeared  for  some  centuries  last  Tpast.''— (Historic 
Library,  chap,  ii.)  Parts  of  that  collection  of  Irish  Records,  called  the  Psalter 
of  Cashel,  which  was  compiled  in  the  tenth  century,  are  supposed  to  have 
been  transcribed  from  the  ancient  Psalter  of  Tara. 

X  "  What  is  remarkable,"  says  Smith,  in  his  History  of  Cork,  "  of  this  last 
family  of  the  O'Cullinans,  is,  that  it  was  never  known  without  one  or  more 

9* 


102  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

sicians  and  artificers  through  all  succeeding  generations.  Not 
only  in  their  early  adoption  of  this  truly  Eastern  rule,  but  in 
the  constancy  with  which,  to  this  day,  they  have  continued, 
through  all  changes  of  time,  to  adhere  to  most  of  their  ancient 
characteristics  and  usages,  the  Irish  have  proved  themselves 
in  so  far  worthy  of  their  oriental  descent,  and  but  too  faithful 
inheritors  of  the  same  stationary  principle. 

Among  the  important  offices  transmitted  hereditarily  in  Ire- 
land, were  those  of  heralds,  practitioners  in  physic,  bards,  and 
musicians.  To  the  professors  of  these  arts  Ollamh  Fodhla 
assigned  lands  for  their  use ;  and  also  instituted  a  school  of 
general  instruction  at  Tara,  v/hich  became  afterwards  cele- 
brated under  the  name  of  the  Mur-ollam-ham,  or  College  of 
the  Learned. 

A  long  series  of  Kings,  with  scarcely  a  single  event  worthy 
of  commemoration,  fills  up  the  interval  between  the  reign  of 
this  monarch  and  the  building  of  the  palace  of  Emania  by  king 
Kimboath ;  an  event  forming,  as  we  have  seen,  a  prominent 
era  in  the  Irish  annals,  and  from  wliich  Tigernach  dates  the 
dawn  of  authentic  history.  This  splendid  palace  of  the  princes 
of  Ulster,  who  were  from  thenceforward  called  Kings  of 
Emania,  had  in  its  neighbourhood  the  mansion  appropriated  to 
the  celebrated  Knights  of  the  Red  Branch,  so  triumphantly 
sung  by  the  bards,  and  commemorated  by  the  seanachies. 

If  the  Bardic  historians,  in  describing  the  glory  and  magni- 
ficence of  some  of  these  reigns,  have  shown  no  ordinary  powers 
of  flourish  and  exaggeration,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  for  the  credit 
of  human  nature,  that  they  have  also  far  outstripped  the  truth 
in  their  accounts  of  the  discord,  treachery,  and  bloodshed  by 
which  almost  every  one  of  these  brief  paroxysms  of  sove- 
reignty was  disgraced.  Out  of  some  tvvo-and-thirty  kings  who 
are  said  to  have  reigned  during  the  interval  between  Ollamh 

physicians  in  it ;  which  is  remarked  by  Camden ;  insomuch,  that  when  a 
person  is  given  over,  they  have  a  saying  in  Irish,  '  Even  an  O'Cullinan  cannot 
cure  him.'  Which  profession  still  continues  in  the  family."  (Book  i.  chap. 
1.)  An  attempt  has  been  made  by  Rollin,  and  not  unplau8ibly,.to  justify 
this  hereditary  system.—"  By  this  means  (he  says)  men  became  more  able 
and  expert  in  employments  which  they  hau  always  been  trained  up  to  from 
their  infancy;  and  every  man  adding  his  own  experience  to  that  of  his  an- 
cestors, was  more  capable  of  rising  to  perfection  in  his  particular  art.  Be- 
sides, this  wholesome  institution,  established  anciently  through  the  Egyptian 
nation,  extinguished  all  irregular  ambition,"  Sec— (Manners  and  Customs  of 
the  Egyptians.)  Herodotus,  however,  in  the  concluding  sentence  of  the  fol- 
lowing passage,  has  laid  open  quietly  the  inherent  absurdity  of  such  a  system. 
"  In  one  instance,  the  Laceda-monians  observe  the  usage  of  Egypt :  their 
heralds,  musicians,  and  cooks,  follow  the  profession  of  their  fathers.  The 
son  of  a  herald  is,  of  course,  a  herald,  and  the  same  of  the  other  two  profes- 
sions. If  any  man  has  a  louder  voice  than  the  son  of  a  herald,  it  signifies 
nothing."— Lib.  6. 


HUGOI?Y    THE    GREAT.  103 

Fodhla  and  the  royal  builder  of  Emania,  not  more  than  three 
are  represented  as  having  died  a  natural  death,  and  the  great 
majority  of  the  remainder  fell  by  the  hands  of  their  successors.* 

Though  the  building  of  the  royal  palace  of  Emania  was  as- 
sumed as  a  technical  epoch  by  the  chronologers,  the  accession 
of  Hugony  the  Great,  as  he  was  called,  proved,  in  a  political 
point  of  view,  an  era  still  more  remarkable;  ay,  by  his  in- 
iluence  with  the  assembled  States  at  Tara,  he  succeeded  in 
annulling  the  Pentarchy ;  and  moreover  prevailed  on  the  four 
provincial  kings  to  surrender  their  right  of  succession  in  favour 
of  his  family,  exacting  from  them  a  solemn  oath,  "  by  all  things 
visible  and  invisiblef,"  not  to  accept  of  a  supreme  monarch 
from  any  other  line.  For  the  Pentarchal  government  this 
monarch  substituted  a  division  of  the  kingdom  into  twenty-five 
districts,  or  dynasties;  thus  ridding  himself  of  the  rivalry  of 
provincial  royalty,  and  at  the  same  time,  widening  the  basis 
of  the  monarchical  or  rather  aristocratical  power.]:  The  abju- 
ration of  their  ri^ht  of  succession,  which  had  been  extorted 
from  the  minor  kings,  was,  as  might  be  expected,  revoked  on 
the  first  opportunity  that  oilered ;  but  the  system  of  govern- 
ment established  in  place  of  tlie  Pentarchy,  was  continued 
down  nearly  to  the  commencement  of  our  era,  when,  under 
the  monarch  Achy  Fedloch,  it  was  rescinded,  and  the  ancient 
form  restored. 

After  the  reign  of  Ilugony,  there  succeeds  another  long 
sterile  interval,  extending,  according  to  the  Bardic  chronology, 
through  a  space  of  more  than  three  hundred  years,  during 
which,  with  the  exception  of  king  Labhra's^  return  from  Gaul 
at  the  head  of  a  Gaulish  colony — an  event  to  which  allusion 
has  already  been  made — not  a  single  public  transaction  is  re- 

*  The  language  in  which  OTinherty  and  O'Halloran  relate  some  of  th»>?c. 
events  is  but  too  well  suited  to  their  subject.  "  Lugad  Luagny,  the  sou  of  the 
King  Inatmar,"  says  O'Flahorty,  "cut  JBresal's  throat,  and  got  the  crown." 
—(Part  iii.  chap.  41.)  "  His  reign,"  says  O'Halloran,  of  another  monarch, 
"  lasted  but  five  years,  when  the  sword  of  his  successor  cut  his  way  through 
him  to  the  Irish  throne."— (Vol.  ii.  chap.  7.) 

t  Annal.  IV.  Magist.— In  these  annals,  Ugony  the  Great  is  styled  "  King 
of  Ilibernia  and  all  Western  Europe,  as  far  as  the  Tuscan  sea." 

t  Accorrling  to  the  view  taken  by  some  writers  of  this  change,  the  prin- 
riple  of  the  Pentarchal  government  was  therein  preserved,  as  Ugony  retained 
the  division  of  the  country  into  five  provinces,  and  in  each  established  a 
Pentarchy. 

§  In  the  accounts  of  the  reign  of  thi.s  monarch,  as  given  by  Keating  and 
others,  are  introduced  two  romantic  stories,  resembling  (one  of  them)  the 
fabulous  adventure  of  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  and  Blondel  ;  and  the  other, 
the  story  of  Midas's  ears,  and  the  miraculous  revealraent  of  his  secret.  In 
the  weak  and  verbose  work  of  Dr.  Warner,  {Hist,  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  book  3.) 
the  reader  will  find  these  stories  diluted  through  some  half  dozen  pages. 


104  HISTORY    OF  IRELAND. 

corded  worthy  of  notice ;  the  names  of  the  kings,  as  usual, 
succeeding  each  other  at  fearfully  short  intervals;  and,  in 
general,  their  accession  and  murder  being  the  only  events  of 
3ieir  brief  career  recorded. 

In  the  reign  of  Conary  the  Great,  which  coincides 
2  *  with  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  the  name 
dwelt  upon,  with  most  interest,  by  the  chroniclers  is  that 
of  the  young  hero  Cuchullin,  whose  death,  in  the  full  flush  and 
glory  of  his  career,  took  place,  according  to  these  authorities,  in 
the  second  year  of  Christ.  With  the  fame  of  this  Irish  warrior 
modern  readers  have  been  made  acquainted  by  that  splendid 
tissue  of  fiction  and  forgery  imposed  upon  the  world  as  the 
Poems  of  Ossian,  where,  in  one  of  those  flights  of  anachro- 
nism not  infrequent  in  that  w^ork,  he  is  confronted  with  the 
bard  and  hero,  Oisin,  who  did  not  flourish  till  the  middle  of  the 
third  century.  The  exploits  of  Cuchullin,  Conal  Cearnach, 
and  other  Heroes  of  the  Red  Branch,  in  the  memorable  Seven 
Years'  War  between  Connaught  and  Ulster*,  are  among  those 
themes  on  which  the  old  chroniclers  and  bardic  historians  most 
delight  to  dwell.  The  circumstance  recorded  of  the  young 
Cuchullin  by  these  annalists,  that,  when  only  seven  years  old, 
he  was  invested  with  knighthood,  might  have  been  regarded 
as  one  of  the  marvels  of  traditionary  story,  had  we  not  direct 
evidence,  in  a  fact  mentioned  by  Froissart,  that,  so  late  as  the 
time  of  that  chronicler,  the  practice  of  knighting  boys  at  the 
very  same  age, — more  especially  those  of  royal  parentage, — 
was  still  retained  in  Ireland.f 

*  This  celebrated  septoniiial  war  bears,  in  Irish  history,  the  name  of  the 
Tainbo-Cuailgnc,  or  the  Spoils  of  the  Cattle  at  Cuailgne;  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  its  origin  having  been  the  seizure  of  an  immense  quantity  of  cattle 
by  the  troops  of  Maud,  the  Q,ueen  of  Connauglit,  at  Cuailgne,  in  the  county 
of  Louth.  The  march  of  her  army  on  this  expedition,  commanded  by  Fergus, 
the  dethroned  King  of  Ulster — the  splendour  of  the  queen  herself,  seated  in 
an  open  chariot,  with  her  Asion,  or  crown  of  gold,  on  her  head — the  names 
of  the  Champions  of  the  Red  Branch,  who  bravely  encountered  her  mighty 
force — all  these  circumstances  arc  found  detailed  in  the  stories  and  romances 
respecting  this  memorable  invasion ;  and  from  some  of  these  fictions,  it 
appears,  Macpherson  derived  the  groundwork  of  his  poems  of  Fingal  and 
Teraora.  See  Mr.  O'Connor's  Dissertation  on  the  History  of  Scotland,  where 
(in  speaking  of  these  poems)  it  is  said,  "  They  are  evidently  founded  on  the 
romances  and  vulgar  stories  of  the  Tan-bo-Cualgney  war,  and  those  of  the 
Fiana  Ereann." 

t  In  Froissart'8  curious  account  of  the  knighting  of  the  four  Irish  kings 
by  Richard  II.,  it  is  related  that,  on  being  asked  whether  they  would  not 
gladly  receive  the  order  of  knighthood  from  the  King  of  England,  "  they 
answered  how  they  were  knights  already,  and  that  sufficed  for  them.  I  asked 
where  they  were  made  knights,  and  how,  and  when.  They  answered,  at 
the  age  of  seven  years  they  were  made  knights  in  Ireland,  and  that  a  king 
maketh  his  son  a  knight. . .  .And  then  this  youngTcnight  shall  begin  to  just 
with  small  spears  against  a  shield,  set  on  a  stake,  in  the  field ;  and  the 
more  spears  that  he  breaketh,  the  more  he  shall  be  honoured."— Froissart, 
vol.  ii.  chap.  202. 


THE    IRISH    EARD3.  105 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  high  station  and  dignities 
assigned  to  their  Bards  and  Antiquaries,  it  will  have  been  seen 
that  in  the  political  system  of  the  ancient  Irish,  the  Literary 
or  Bardic  order,  which  appears  to  have  been  distinct  from  the 
Druidical,  formed  one  of  the  most  active  and  powerful  springs. 
Supported  by  lands  set  aside  for  their  use,  and  surrounded  by 
privileges  and  immunities  which,  even  in  the  midst  of  civil 
commotion,  rendered  their  persons  and  property  sacred,  they 
were  looked  up  to  not  only  as  guardians  of  their  country's  his- 
tory and  literature,  but  as  interpreters  and  dispensers  of  its 
laws.  Thus  endowed  and  privileged,  this  class  of  the  commu- 
nity came  at  length  to  possess  sucli  inordinate  power,  and,  by 
a  natural  consequence,  so  much  to  abuse  it,  that  a  popular  re- 
action against  their  encroachments  was  the  result,  and  their 
whole  order  was  about  to  be  expelled  from  the  kingdom.  In 
this  crisis  of  their  fate,  the  heroic  Conquovar,  king  of  Ulster, 
espoused  the  cause  of  the  Bards ;  and,  protesting  strongly 
against  the  policy  of  suppressing  them  altogether,  succeeded 
in  effecting  such  reformations  in  the  constitution  of  their  order, 
more  especially  in  all  that  related  to  their  judicial  proceedings, 
as  at  length  restored  them  to  public  favour.  The  better  to 
regulate  their  decisions  for  the  future,  he  caused  a  digest  of 
the  ancient  laws  to  be  formed,  under  the  auspices  of  Forchern, 
and  two  other  distinguished  poets ;  and  the  code  thus  compiled 
was  called  by  their  admiring  contemporaries.  Breathe  Neimidh, 
or  tlie  Celestial  Judgments."^-'  In  having  poets  thus  for  their 
lawgivers,  the  Irish  but  followed  the  example  of  most  of  the 
ancient  nations ;  among  whom,  in  the  infancy  of  legislation, 
the  laws  were  promulgated  always  in  verse,  and  often  publicly 
sung ;  and  even  so  late  as  the  time  of  Strabo,  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  the  people  of  Mazaca,  in  Cappadocia,  (who  was  to  them 
what  jurisconsults  were  to  the  Romans),  bore  the  title,  as  we 
are  uiformed  by  Strabo,  of  the  Law-singer.f 

We  are  told,  says  Sir  James  Ware,  in  a  MS.  Life  of  Sf.Carthag,  Bishop  of 
Lismore,  who  flourished  in  tlie  seventh  century,  that  "  Moelfulius,  one  of  the 
petty  princes  of  Kerry,  intending  to  knight  St.  Carthag,  while  he  was  a  boy, 
would  have  put  into  his  hand  a  sword  and  target,  being  the  badge  or  cogni- 
zance of  knighthood."— ^iiiiqidtics,  chap.  26. 

*  This  translation  of  the  term,  which  has  been  adopted  by  all  other  au- 
thorities on  the  subject,  is,  I  find,  questioned  by  the  learned  Irish  scholar, 
Mr.  O'Reilly,  (Trans,  of  Iberno-Celtic  Society),  who  contends,  in  opposition 
to  OTlaherty,  the  O'Connors,  O'Halloran,  &c.,  that  the  meaning  of  the 
words  Breathe  Neimidh  is  the  Laws  of  the  Nobles.  This  is  but  one  of  nu- 
merous instances  that  might  be  adduced,  in  which  important  Irish  words 
are  shown  to  be  capable  of  entirely  different  meanings  in  the  hands  of  dif- 
ferent interpreters,— seeming  in  so  far  to  justify  those  charges  of  vague- 
ness and  confusion  which  Pinkerton,  in  his  hatred  of  every  thing  Celtic, 
brings  so  constantly  against  the  Irish  language.  See  Enquiry,  &c.,  part  iii. 
chap.  2. 

t  A'lpovjievoi  Kai  vojmSov,  bs  tariv  avroig  £^nynTr]i  rav  vo^wv,  lib.  12. 


106  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

As  we  advance  into  the  Christian  era,  a  somewhat  clearer 
and  more  extended  range  of  horizon  opens  upon  us ;  as  well 
from  our  approaching  that  period  to  which  the  authentic  annals 
of  the  country  extend,  as  from  the  light  which  thenceforward 
the  Roman  accounts  of  Britain  throw  incidentally  on  the  aifairs 
of  the  sister  island.     It  was  during  the  reign  of  the 
^r- '  Irish  monarch  Crimthan,  or,  according  to  others,  that  of 
.       his  successor  Fiachad,  that  Agricola  was  engaged  in 
Qrt     pursuing  his  victorious  enterprises  in  Britain  ;  and  the 
few  facts  relating  to  Ireland,  which  his  philosophic  bio- 
grapher discloses,  are,  in  themselves,  worth  whole  volumes  of 
vague,  ordinary  history :  as,  though  but  glimpses,  the  insight 
which  they  afford  is  vivid  and  searching.     The  simple  state- 
ment, for  instance,  of  Tacitus,  that,  at  the  period  when  he 
wrote,  the  waters  and  harbours  of  Ireland  were,  through  the 
means  of  commerce  and  of  navigators,  better  known  than  those 
of  Britain*,  opens  such  a  retrospect  at  once  into  her  foregone 
history,  as,  combined  with  similar  glimpses  in  other  writings 
of  antiquity,  renders  credible  her  claims  to  early  civilization, 
and  goes  far  to  justify  some  of  the  proud  boasts  of  her  annals. 
In  a  far  other  sense,  the  view  opened  by  the  historian  into 
the  interior  of  Ireland's  politics  at  that  moment, — the  divided 
and  factious  state  of  her  people,  and  the  line  of  policy  which, 
in  consequence,  the  shrewd  Agricola,  as  ruler  of  Britain,  was 
preparing  to  pursue  towards  them, — is  all  of  melancholy  im- 
portance, as  showing  at  how  early  a  period   Irishmen  had 
become  memorable  for  disunion  among  themselves,  and  how 
early  those   who  were  interested   in  weakening   them,  had 
learned  to  profit  by  their  dissensions. 

"  One  of  their  petty  kings,"  says  Tacitus,  "  who  had  been 
forced  to  fly  by  some  domestic  faction,  was  received  by  the 
Roman  genera),  and  under  a  show  of  friendship  detained  for 
ulterior  purposes."!  Tlie  plan  successfully  pursued  by  Csesar 
towards  Gaul,  of  playing  off  her  various  factions  against  each 
other|,  and  making  her  own  sons  the  ready  instruments  of  her 
subjugation,  would  have  been  the  policy  doubtless  of  Agricola 
towards  Ireland,  had  these  ulterior  purposes  been  put  in  exe- 
cution. The  object  of  the  Irishman  was  to  induce  the  Romans 
to  invade  his  native  country ;  and  by  his  representations,  it 
appears,  Agricola  was  persuaded  into  the  belief  that,  with  a 

*  Melius  aditus  portusque  per  commercia  et  negociatores  cogniti.— v^^ric. 
cap.  21. 

t  Agricola  expulsum  seditione  doinestica  unum  ex  Regulis  gentis  exceperat, 
ac  specie  amicitise  in  occasionem  retinebat.— .^^ric.  cap.  24. 

I  De  Bell.  Gal.  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 


THE  ROMANS  DESIROUS  TO  SUBDUE  IRELAND.       107 

single  legion,  and  a  small  body  of  auxiliaries,  he  could  conquer 
and  retain  possession  of  Ireland.* 

It  would  hardly  be  possible,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  compass 
of  history,  to  find  a  picture  more  pregnant  with  the  future, 
more  prospectively  characteristic,  than  this  of  a  recreant  Irish 
prince  in  the  camp  of  the  Romans,  proffering  his  traitorous 
services  to  the  stranger,  and  depreciating  his  country  as  an 
excuse  for  betraying  her.  It  is,  indeed,  mournful  to  reflect 
that,  at  the  end  of  nearly  eighteen  centuries,  the  features  of 
this  national  portrait  should  remain  so  very  little  altered  ;  and 
that  with  a  change  only  of  scene  from  the  tent  of  the  Roman 
general  'to  the  closet  of  the  English  minister  or  viceroy,  the 
spectacle  of  an  Irishman  playing  the  game  of  his  country's 
enemies  has  been,  even  in  modern  history,  an  occurrence  by 
no  means  rare. 

Offence  has  been  taken  by  some  Irish  historians  at  the  slur 
thrown,  as  they  think,  on  the  courage  of  their  countrymen,  by 
the  hope  attributed  to  the  Roman  general  of  being  able  to 
effect  an  easy  conquest  of  Ireland.f  But  they  ought  to  have 
recollected  that,  more  than  a  thousand  years  alter,  from  the 
same  fatal  cause,  internal  disunion,  a  far  smaller  force  than 
Agricola  thought  requisite  for  his  purpose,  laid  the  ancient 
Milesian  monarchy  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Britain.  At  the 
same  time,  it  cannot  but  be  acknowledged  that  the  conduct  of 
the  Romans  respecting  Ireland,  by  no  means  warrants  the  sup- 
position that  they  held  its  conquest  to  be  at  all  an  easy  task. 
The  immense  advantages  that  must  attend  the  acquisition  of 
a  country  placed  so  immediately  in  the  neighbourhood  of  their 
British  possessions,  were,  we  know,  fully  appreciated  by  them  ; 
nor  could  any  views  be  more  keen  and  far-sighted  than  those 
of  Agricola,  as  unfolded  by  Tacitus,  both  as  regarded  the  com- 
mercial strength  that  must  accrue  to  Britain^  from  the  occupa- 
tion of  Ireland,  and  the  strong  moral  and  political  influence 
which  the  example  of  this  latter  country  must  ever  exercise, 
whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  over  the  fortunes  of  her  more  pow- 

*  Ssepe  ex  eo  aiidivi  legione  una  et  modicis  auxiliis  debellari  obtinerique 
Hiberniam  posse.— .^^ric.  ib. 

t  The  estimate  of  Strabo  respecting  Britain  is,  considering  all  things,  still 
less  flattering.  To  keep  her  tributary,  he  says,  at  least  a  legion  and  a  few 
horse  would  be  requisite.  TyXa^i'^ov  fitv  yap  tvoi  Tayixaros  ■^prj^oi  av,  Kai 
In-KiKy  Tivog. — Lib.  iv.  To  the  courage  of  the  Caledonians,  according  to  this 
standard,  tlie  highest  testimony  seems  to  have  been  paid  ;  as,  about  the  3'ear 
230,  while  one  legion  was  found  sufficient  to  keep  all  the  rest  of  Britain  in 
subjection,  two  were  employed  upon  the  borders,  against  this  people.— Dio.  55. 

I  Si  quidem  Hibernia,  medio  inter  Britanniam  atque  Hispaniam  sita,  et 
Gallico  quoque  mari  opportuna,  valentissimam  imperii  partem  magnis  invi- 
cem  usibus  miscuerit. — Igric.  ib. 


108  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

erful  neighbour.  He  saw  that  the  Britons,  says  the  historian, 
could  never  be  effectively  curbed  as  long-  as  there  was  a  peo- 
ple yet  unrnastered  in  their  neighbourhood ;  and  that,  to  effect 
this  object,  the  example  of  liberty  must  be  removed  wholly 
from  their  sight.*  Could  the  sagacious  Agricola  again  visit 
this  earth,  he  would  find  his  views,  as  to  the  moral  influence 
of  the  two  countries  upon  each  other,  fully  confirmed ; — would 
see  that  the  oppression  of  tiie  weaker  people  by  the  stronger 
has  produced  a  reaction,  which  may  be,  in  time,  salutary  to 
both ;  and  that  already,  in  all  the  modes,  at  least,  of  strug- 
gling for  liberty,  Ireland  has  become  the  practised  instructor 
of  England. 

With  so  deep  a  sense  of  the  great  value  of  the  possession, 
there  can  hardly  be  a  more  convincing  proof  that  the  Romans 
considered  its  conquest  not  easy,  than  the  simple  fact  that 
they  never  attempted  it ;  and  that,  though  Britain  continued 
to  be  harassed  by  the  Irish  for  near  three  centuries  after, 
not  a  single  Roman  soldier  ever  set  foot  on  their  shores. 
Even  when  the  flight  of  their  eagles  had  extended  as  far  as 
the  Orcades,  Ireland  still  remained  free.f 

How  little  the  Irish  themselves  were  in  fear  of  invasion  at 
this  very  period,  when,  as  Tacitus  informs  us,  the  coast  op- 
posite to  their  shores  was  lined  with  Roman  troops,  may  be 
judged  from  the  expedition  to  Britain  undertaken  by  the  mon- 
arch Crimthan,  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  his  ancient  allies  the 
Picts,  in  their  heroic  stand  against  the  legions  of  Rome.  In 
tlie  course  of  this  visit  the  Irish  monarch  is  said  to  have  first 
set  the  darmg  example  of  those  predatory  incursions  into  the 
Roman  province  by  whicli  the  Britons  continued  to  be  ha- 
rassed for  so  long  a  period  after ;  and  having  been  eminently 
successful,  as  it  appears,  on  this  occasion,  he  returned  to  his 
dominions  laden  with  a  variety  of  rich  and  even  luxurious 
booty,  the  particulars  of  which  have  been  triumphantly  enu- 
merated by  the  annalists.  | 

*  "  I.lqiie  etiam  advorsus  Brilaniiiam  profuturum,  t^i  Romaiia  ubique  arma, 
et  velut  e  conspeclii  libertas  loMbreUir. ''—^gric.  ib.  The  remarks  of  La 
Blctterie,  the  Frencli  translator,  upon  tliis  chapter,  prove  how  pregnant  with 
the  seeds  of  the  future  it  appeared  to  liini.  "  Ireland  has  more  harbours  and 
more  convenient  than  any  other  country  in  Europe.  England  has  but  a 
small  number.  Ireland,  if  f;he  could  shake  oft'  the  British  yoke,  and  form  an 
independent  state,  would  ruin  the  British  conmierce;  but,  to  her  misfortune, 
England  is  too  well  convinced  of  this  truth." 

t  "Hibernia  Romanis  etiam  Orcadum  insularum  dominium  tenentibua 
inaccessa,  raro  et  tepide  ab  ullo  unquam  expugnata  et  subacta  est."— Cw/ie/- 
rnus  Parv.  JVebriss.  Hist.  Rer.  ^ngl. 

X  In  the  long  list  of  articles  specified  by  the  Four  Masters,  as  composing 
this  mass  of  plunder,  are  mentioned  a  suit  uf  armour  ornamented  with 


MASSACRE    AT    MAGH-CRU.  109 

On  the  death  of  this  monarch,  whose  name  enjoys,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  peculiar  distinction  of  being  associated  in  the 
page  of  history  with  those  of  Tacitus  and  Agricola,  a  more  than 
usually  troubled  period  succoeded ;  during  which  even  that 
frail  and  nominal  pledge  for  the  security  of  the  public  peace, 
which  the  descent  of  the  monarchy  by  inheritance  afforded, 
was  set  at  defiance  by  a  plebeian  usurper  and  his  followers, 
and  the  whole  island  made  one  scene  of  promiscuous  strife 
and  bloodshed.  A  spirit  of  revolt  among  the  descendants 
of  the  Belgic  tribes,  whose  chief  seat  was  Connaught,  but 
of  wliom  numbers  were  also  dispersed  throughout  the  other 
provinces,  was  the  primary  cause  of  all  this  commotion.  The 
state  of  Ireland,  indeed,  at  this  crisis,  shows  at  how  early  a 
period  was  naturalized  on  her  shores  that  principle  of  ex- 
clusion and  proscription  which,  in  after  ages,  flourished  there 
so  rankly.  Under  the  Milesian  or  Scotic  rule,  not  merely 
were  the  great  mass  of  the  old  Celtic  population  held  in  sub- 
jection by  the  sword,  but  also  the  descendants  of  the  foreign 
settlers,  the  remains  of  the  conquered  Belgic  tribes,  were 
wholly  excluded  from  every  share  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs,  and  treated,  in  every  respect,  as  a  servile  and 
helot  class.  Confederated  among  themselves  by  a  common 
sense  of  humiliation  and  wrong,  these  people,  having  concert- 
ed their  measures,  took  the  opportunity  of  a  great  public  as- 
sembly, held  at  Magh-Cru,  in  Connaught,  to  strike  the  first 
blow  of  their  conspiracy.  An  indiscriminate  massacre  of  all 
the  princes  and  chiefs  collected  on  that  occasion  was  the  signal 
of  general  revolt  among  their  confederates  throughout  the  king- 
dom ;  and  being  joined  also  by  the  larger  portion  of  the 
Celtic  population,  to  whom  the  dominant  caste  was  Ap.  ' 
odious,  they  succeeded,  with  but  little  opposition,  in  over- 
turning the  legitimate  monarchy,  and  placing  one  of  their  own 
race  and  rank,  Carbre  Cat-can,  upon  the  throne. 

The  five  years  during  which  the  reign  of  this  usurper  lasted 
are  described  by  the  annalists  as  a  period  of  general  gloom 
and  sterility, — "  no  grain  on  the  stalk,  no  fruitfulness  in  the 
waters,  the  herds  all  barren,  and  but  one  acorn  on  the  oak." 
Abandoned  wholly  to  the  rule  of  the  rabble,  there  appeared  no 
hope  for  the  nation  of  better  days ;  when  unexpectedly,  on  the 
death  of  Carbre,  the  magnanimity  of  one  individual  changed 
the  whole  face  of  affairs.     The  usurper's  son  and  intended 

embossed  gold  and  gems,  a  military  cloak  with  golden  fringe,  a  sword  with 
figures  of  serpents  upon  it  in  chased  gold,  and  a  brace  of  greyhounds,  joined 
together  by  a  silver  chain,  whose  price  is  estimated,  accordingto  the  primitive 
usage  of  barter,  at  the  value  of  300  cows. 

'  Vol.  I.  10 


110  HISTORY    OF    IKELA^•D. 

successor,  Moran,  instead  of  accepting  the  bequeathed  crown  foi 
himself,  employed  all  his  influence  to  have  it  replaced  upon  a 
legitimate  brow,  and  succeeded  in  restoring  the  royal  race  in 
the  person  of  Feredach,  son  of  Crimthan.  The  post  of  Chief 
Judge  of  the  kingdom,  bestowed  upon  him  by  the  monarch, 
afforded  to  Moran  the  means  of  completing  his  generous  work, 
and  of  rendering  popular,  by  a  course  of  unexampled  clemen- 
cy and  justice,  that  restoration  of  which  he  had  been  so  dis- 
interestedly the  author.  To  the  fame  acquired  by  this  judge 
for  his  upright  decisions,  is  owing  the  fable  of  the  lodham  Mo- 
ran*, or  Moran's  Collar,  which  is  said  to  have  given  warning, 
by  increased  pressure  around  the  neck  of  the  wearer,  when- 
ever he  was  about  to  pronounce  an  unjust  sentence. 

The  administration  of  this  honest  counsellor  succeeded  in 
earning  for  his  king  the  honour  of  the  title  of  the  Just ;  and,  un- 
der their  joint  sway,  the  whole  country  enjoyed  a  lull  of  tran- 
quillity as  precious  as  it  was  rare.  This  calm,  however,  was 
but  of  brief  duration :  in  the  reign  of  the  son  of  this  monarch, 
Fiach,  there  broke  out  a  second  revolt  of  the  plebeians,  or  At- 
tacotof,  vvhich  raged  even  more  fiercely  than  the  former,  and  in 
vvhich  the  provincial  kings  took  part  with  the  insurgents  against 
the  monarchical  cause.  At  the  head  of  this  royal  insur- 
126  ^^^^"^^^  "^"^'^^  Elim,  the  King  of  Ulster ;  and  so  successful 
'  for  a  time,  with  the  aid  of  the  populace,  was  his  rebel- 
lion, that  the  young  monarch,  Tuathal,  found  himself  compell- 
ed to  fly  to  North  Britain,  where,  taking  refuge  at  the  court  of 
hi3  maternal  grandfather,  the  King  of  the  Picts,  he  deter- 
mined to  await  a  turn  of  fortune  in  his  favour.  Nor  was  it 
long  before  a  great  majority  of  the  people  themselves,  wearied 
with  their  own  excesses,  and  moreover  chastened  into  a  little 
reflection  by  that  usual  result  of  such  seasons  of  outbreak,  a 
famine,  began  to  bethink  themselves  of  the  claims  of  their 
rightful  sovereign,  the  grandson  of  their  favourite  king,  Fere- 
dach the  Just.     Full  of  compunction  for  their   ingratitude, 

*  A  golden  collar  or  breastplate,  supposed  by  Vallancey  to  be  the  lodhain 
Morain,  was  lound,  some  year?  since,  in  the  county  of  Limerick,  twelve  feet 
deep,  in  a  turf  bog.  "  It  is  made  of  thin  plated  gold,  and  chased  in  a  very 
neat  and  workmanlike  manner;  the  breast-plate  is  single,  but  the  hemi- 
spherical ornaments  at  the  top  are  lined  throughout  with  another  thin  plate 
of  pure  gold." — Collectan.  Hibern.,  No.  13. 

The  traditional  memory  of  this  chain  or  collar  (says  O'Flanigan)  is  so  well 
preserved  to  this  day,  that  it  is  a  common  expression  for  a  person  asseve- 
rating absolute  truth  to  say,  "  I  would  swear  by  Moran's  chain  for  it."— 
Trans,  of  Gaelic  Society,  vol.  i. 

t  The  Plebeians  engaged  in  this  rebellion  are,  in  general,  called  Attacots, 
a  name  corrupted  from  the  compound  Irish  term  Attach  tuatha,  which  signi- 
fies, according  to  Dr.  O'Connor,  the  Giant  Race,  (Prol.  i.  74.);  but,  according 
to  Mr.  O'Reillys  vercion,  3imply  the  Plebeian?. 


CHIKF    CAUSE    or    IINTERNAL    COMMUTlOIN.  Ill 

tliey  dispatched  messengers  to  solicit  his  retuni ;  in  prompt 
obedience  to  which  summons,  the  monarch  landed  at  the  head 
of  a  body  of  Pictish  troops,  and  marching  directly  to  Tara, 
was  elected  sovereign  amidst  tlie  acclamations  of  his  subjects. 
From  thence,  taking  the  field  instantly  against  the  rebels,  he 
pursued  his  course,  from  victory  to  victory,  throughout  the 
kingdom,  till  the  usurpation  was  wliolly  extinguished, 
the  former  relations  of   society  everywhere  restored,  Vg// 
and  the  monarch  himself  hailed  witli  general  acclama- 
tion under  the  title  of  Tuathal,  the  Acceptable. 

This  second  Plebeian  War — to  use  the  term  applied  to  it  by 
Irish  historians — having  been  thus  happily  terminated,  Tuathal 
convoked,  according  to  custom,  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
States  at  Tara,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  with  them  re- 
specting the  general  affairs  and  interests  of  the  kingdom,  but 
more  especially  with  a  view  to  the  arrangement  of  the  import- 
ant question  of  tlie  succession.  In  a  country  where  kings  were 
so  very  numerous,  and  all  of  them  elective,  every  new  demise 
of  royalty  was,  of  course,  but  a  new  signal  for  discord;  and 
Ihe  sovereign  crown  being  more  than  the  rest  an  object  of 
rivalry  and  ambition,  was  in  proportion  the  greatest  source  of 
strife.  Efforts  had  more  than  once  been  made  to  confine  the 
right  of  succession  to  one  family,  and  thereby  limit  at  least  the 
range  of  the  mischief;  but  the  temptation  to  violate  all  such 
restrictions  had  been  ibund  stronger  than  the  oath  pledged  to 
observe  them.  The  fatal  consequence,  liowever,  of  the  late 
interruptions  of  the  old  Heremonian  line  of  descent  seemed  to 
call  imperatively  for  some  protection  against  the  recurrence  of 
such  disorders ;  and  accordingly  Tuathal  found  no  difiiculty  in 
inducing  the  States  of  the  kingdom  to  proffer  their  ancient  and 
solemn  oath,  "  by  the  sun,  moon,  and-  stars,"  that,  as  long  as 
Ireland  should  be  encircled  by  the  sea,  they  would  acknow- 
ledge him  alone  as  their  lawful  monarch.  The  same  pledges 
had  been  given  to  his  predecessors,  Heremon  and  Hugony; 
and,  in  all  three  instances,  had  been  alike  violated  as  soon  as 
the  breath  had  left  the  royal  frame. 

Under  this  monarch  the  county  of  Meath,  which  occupied 
the  centre  of  the  island,  was  enlarged  by  a  grant  of  land  from 
each  of  the  other  provinces ;  and,  under  the  name  of  "  The 
Mensal  Lands  of  the  Monarch  of  Ireland,"  was  appropriated 
thenceforth  as  an  appanage  of  the  royal  domain.  To  gratify 
the  taste  of  his  people  for  conventions  and  festivals,  he  ordained 
that,  in  addition  to  the  Triennial  Council  of  Tara,  there  should 
be  held  annually  three  assemblies  of  the  kingdom ;  one  at 
Tlactha,  on  the  night  of  Samhin,  where  fires  were  lighted  and 


112  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

sacrifices  offered  to  that  divinity ;  another,  on  the  day  of  the 
Baal-fire,  at  the  sacred  hill  of  Usneach ;  and  a  third,  on  the 
plains  of  Taltin,  in  the  Ultonian  district*,  where  those  annual 
sports,  introduced  in  the  time  of  the  Damnonian  kings,  were 
revived. 

A  far  less  creditable  sample  of  his  policy  was  the  enormous 
mulct  imposed  by  him  on  the  province  of  Leinster,  in  revenge 
for  the  conduct  of  its  ruler,  Achy ;  thus  dooming  an  unoffend- 
ing people  and  their  posterity  to  atone  for  the  crimes  of  one 
worthless  prince,,  This  oppressive  fine,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Boarian  or  Boromeaii  tribute,  was  exacted  every  second 
year,  and  continued  to  be  the  cause  of  much  confiision  and  blood- 
shed till  the  year  693  ;  when,  in  the  reign  of  King  Finnacta, 
through  the  intercession  of  St.  Moling,  it  was  remitted. 

The  offence  by  which  Achy,  king  of  Leinster,  drew  down 
on  that  province  so  many  centuries  of  taxation,  though  expand- 
ed by  Keating  and  Warner  into  a  romance  of  some  pages,  may 
thus,  in  a  few  brief  sentences,  be  narrated.  Having  espoused 
one  of  the  daughters  of  the  monarch  Fuathal,  and  carried  her 
home  to  his  own  kingdom,  the  Leinster  prince,  in  little  more 
than  a  year  after  their  union,  made  his  appearance  again  at 
Tara ;  and  informing  the  monarch,  with  every  demonstration 
of  sorrow,  that  his  young  queen  was  dead,  obtained  permission 
to  pay  his  addresses  to  her  sister,  and  succeeded  in  making  her 
also  his  bride.  On  arriving  with  her  royal  husband  in  his  own 
province,  the  young  princess  found  his  queen  still  living ;  so 
great  was  her  surprise  and  shame  at  this  discovery,  that  she 
but  for  a  few  minutes,  we  are  told,  survived  the  shock.  The 
deceived  queen  also,  who,  in  her  ignorance  of  the  real  circum- 
stances, had  flown  with  delight  to  receive  her  sister,  as  a 
visiter,  on  being  informed  of  the  sad  truth  of  the  story,  took  it 
no  less  deeply  to  heart;  and,  wounded  alike  by  the  perfidy  of 
her  lord  and  the  melancholy  fate  of  his  young  victim,  pined 
away  and  died.  For  this  base  act,  which  ought  to  have  been 
avenged  only  upon  the  unmanly  offender,  not  merely  were  his 
subjects,  but  all  their  posterity  for  more  than  five  hundred 
years,  compelled  to  pay  every  second  year  to  the  reigning  mo- 
narch that  memorable  tributef,  which,  contested  as  it  was  in 

*  Tenia  apud  Talten,  in  Ultoniae  portione.— iJcr.  Hib.  Script.  Prol.  ii.  79. 

t  According  to  the  old  history,  cited  by, Keating,  called  the  Fine  of  Lein- 
ster, this  tribute,  which  was  paid  through  the  reigijs  of  forty  kings,  consisted 
of  3000  cows,  as  many  hogs  and  sheep,  3000  copper  caldrons,  as  many  ounces 
of  silver,  and  the  same  number  of  mantles.  The  number  of  each  kind  of 
cattle  demanded  is  stated  variously  by  different  authorities;  some  making  it 
so  few  as  300  (MacCurtin's  Brief  Discourse),  and  others  as  high  as  15,000.— 
MS.  quoted  by  Dr.  O'Connor. 


CRIMINAL  JUEI3PEUDENCE.  113 

most  instances,  superadded  to  the  numerous  occasions  of  col- 
lision for  ever  arising,  throughout  the  country,  an  almost  regu- 
larly recurring  crisis  of  confusion  and  bloodshed. 

During  the  reign  of  Tuatlial,  there  were  appointed  courts 
of  municipal  jurisdiction  for  the  better  regulation  of  the  con- 
cerns of  tradesmen  and  artificers ;  an  institution  which,  could 
we  place  reliance  on  the  details  relating  to  it,  would  imply 
rather  an  advanced  state  of  interior  traffic  and  merchandise. 
One  fact  which  appears  pretty  certain  from  these  accounts  is, 
that  previously  to  the  system  now  introduced,  none  of  the 
Milesian  or  dominant  caste  had  condescended  to  occupy  them- 
selves in  trade ; — all  mechanical  employments  and  handicrafts 
being  left  to  the  descendants  of  the  old  conquered  tribes ;  while 
for  the  issue  of  the  minor  branches  of  the  Milesians  were  re- 
served the  appointments  in  the  militia  of  Erin,  and  the  old 
hereditary  offices  of  antiquaries,  bards,  physicians,  and  judges. 

Whatever,  in  other  respects,  may  have  been  the  civilization 
of  the  Irish  before  the  reign  of  king  Feidlim  (a.  d.  164), 
their  notions  of  criminal  jurisprudence  were  as  yet  but  a.  d. 
rude  and  barbarous ;  since  we  learn,  that  the  old  law  of  161. 
retaliation  was  then  for  the  first  tune  exchanged  for  the 
more  lenient  as  well  as  less  demoralizing  mode  of  punishment 
by  a  mulct  or  Eric.     Some  writers,  it  is  true,  have  asserted* 
that  the  very  reverse  of  what  has  been  just  stated  was  the 
fact ;  and  that  Feidlim,  finding  the  Law  of  Compensation  al- 
ready established,  introduced  the  Lex  Talionis  in  its  stead. 
But  this  assuredly  would  have  been  to  retrograde  rather  than 
to  advance  in  civilization ; — one  of  the  first  steps  towards 
civility,  in  the  infancy  of  all  nations,  having  been  the  substitu- 
tion, in  criminal  justice,  of  fines  proportionate  to  the  offencesf, 

*  See  Warner  (History  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  book  4.),  whose  confused  notions 
respecting  this  law  are  adopted,  and  rendered  still  "  worse  confounded,"  by 
the  author  of  the  Dissertations  on  the  Ilist.  of  Ireland,  sect.  11. 

t  The  following  is  Spenser's  account  of  the  Law  of  the  Eric,  as  existing 
among  the  Irish.  Having  remarked  that,  in  the  Brehon  Law,  there  were 
"  many  things  repugning  both  to  God's  law  and  man's,"  he  adds,  "  as  for  ex- 
ample,  in  the  case  of  murder,  the  Brehon,  that  is,  their  Judge,  will  compound 
between  the  murderer  and  the  friends  of  the  party  murdered,  which  prose- 
cute the  action,  that  the  malefactor  shall  give  unto  them,  or  to  the  child  or 
wife  of  him  that  is  slain,  a  recompense  which  they  call  an  Eriach  ;  by  which 
wild  law  of  theirs  many  murders  amongst  them  are  made  up  and  smothered." 
—View  of  the  State  of  Ireland. 

Both  by  Spenser  and  Sir^  John  Davis  this  custom  of  compounding  the  crime 
of  homicide  by  a  fine  is  spoken  of  as  peculiar  to  the  Irish ;  and  the  latter 
writer  even  grounds  upon  it  a  most  heavy  charge  against  that  people  ;  either 
forgetting  that  this  mode  of  composition  for  manslaughter  formed  a  part  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  code,  or  else  wilfully  suppressing  that  fact  for  the  purpos«; 
of  aggravating  his  list  of  charges  against  the  old  Brehon  law.  As  thorf  u  ill 
occur  other  opportunities  for  considering  this  question,  T  shall  Ix-ic  onlv  if 

lO''- 


114  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

for  the  savage  law  of  retaliation  and  the  right  of  private  re- 
venge. Should  even  this  improved  stage  of  jurisprudence, 
under  which  murders  of  the  darkest  kind  might  be  compounded 
for,  appear  sufficiently  barbarous,  it  should  be  recollected  that 
neither  the  Greeks*  at  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  nor  the 
English  under  their  great  ruler  Alfred,  had  yet  advanced  a  step 
farther. 

To  Feidlim  the  Legislator  succeeded,  after  a  short  period, 
Iiis  son  Con  of  the  Hundred  Battles;  a  prince  whose  long 
reign  was  devoted,  as  his  distinctive  title  imports,  to  a  series  of 
conflicts  which  seem  to  have  been  as  various  in  their  success, 
as  they  were  murderous  and  devastating  in  their  consequences. 
From  the  family  of  this  hero  descended  that  race  of  chieftains 
who,  under  the  title  of  the  Dalriadic  kings,  supplied  Albany, 
the  modern  Scotland,  with  her  first  Scotish  rulers ;  Car- 
oko'  bry  Riada, — the  son  of  Conary  the  Second  by  the 
daughter  of  the  monarch  Con, — having  been  the  chief 
who,  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  establislied  that 
Irish  settlement  in  Argyleshiref,  which,  taking  the  name  of 
its  princely  founder,  grew  up,  in  the  course  of  time,  into  the 
kingdom  of  Dalriada ;  and  finally,  on  the  destruction  of  the 
Picts  by  Kenetli  Mac-Alpine,  became  the  kingdom  of  all  Scot- 
land. 

The  incursions  of  the  Irish  into  those  northern  parts  of  Britain 
had  commenced  at  a  very  remote  period ;  and  in  the  reigns  of 
Olmucad,  Tigernhmas,  Reatch,  and  other  monarchs,  such  ex- 
peditions to  the  coast  of  Albany  are  recorded  to  have  taken 
place.|  Without  depending,  however,  solely  on  Irish  authori- 
ties, the  language  of  the  Roman  panegyrist,  Eumenius,  in  ex- 
tolling the  victory  gained  in  Britain  by  Constantius  Chlorus, 
would  fully  suffice  to  prove  that,  previously  to  the  coming  of 
CsBsar,  the  neighbourhood  of  Ireland  had  been  found  trouble- 
mark  that,  however  it  may  have  been  customary  among  the  ancient  Pagan 
Irish  to  punish  homicide  by  a  mulct,  or  Eric,  alone,  there  are  proofs  that,  in 
later  times,  and  before  the  coming  of  the  English,  not  only  was  wilful  mur- 
der, but  also  the  crimes  of  rape  and  robbery,  made  legally  punishable  by 
death.— See  Dissertations  on  the  Laws  of  the  ancient  Irish,  Collectan.  vol.  i.— 
O'Reilly,  on  the  Brehon  Laws,  sect.  B.—Ledwich,  Antiquities.— Hume,  vol.  i. 
Appendix. 

*  Iliad,  1.  ix.  V.  630.,  where,  by  Homer,  the  blood-fine  is  called  a  penalty  or 
mulct,  and  the  relatives  of  the  murdered  person  are  represented  as  satisfied 
with  the  imposition. 

t  In  these  Scoto-Irish  chiefs  of  Argyleshire,  says  Sir  Walter  Scott,  histo- 
rians  "  must  trace  the  original  roots  of  the  royal  line."— History  of  Scotland, 
vol.  i.  chap.  2. 

X  These  early  incursions  are  thus  acknowledged  by  Buchanan  :— "  Nee 
semel  Scotorum  ex  Hibernia  transitum  in  Albium  factum  nostri  aunales 
referunt."- Hist.  Scot,  1.  2.   ' 


COLONY    OF    IRISH    IN    NORTH    BRITAIN.  116 

some  to  the  Britons,  and  that  they  had  been  "  accustomed" — 
for  such  is  the  phrase  used  by  the  orator — to  invasions  from 
that  quarter.*  But  the  first  permanent  settlement  of  the  Irish 
in  North  Britain  was  the  small  colony,  just  mentioned,  under 
Carbry  Riada ;  which,  fixing  its  abode  in  a  part  of  those  re- 
gions inhabited  previously  only  by  the  Picts,  or  Caledonians, 
acquired,  as  Bede  tells  us,  partly  by  friendship  and  partly  by  the 
sword,  a  settled  home  in  the  countryf ;  while  their  founder, 
already  possessing,  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  a  seigniorial  terri- 
tory named,  after  himself,  Dalriada|,  transmitted  the  same 
name  to  the  infant  kingdom  he  was  thus  the  means  of  estab- 
lishing in  Albany.  5 

*  "  Adlmc  natio  (Britannica')  etiam  tunc  rudis  et  solis  Britanni  Pictis  modo 
et  Hibernis  adsueti  hostibus,  adhuc  seminudi,  facile  Romanis  armis  signisque 
cesserunt." — Panegyric.  Vet. 

f'Procedente  autem  tempore  Britannia  post  Britones  et  Pictos,  tertiam 
Scotorum  nationem  in  Pictorum  parte  recepit,  qui,  duce  Reuda,  de  Hibernia 
egressi,  vel  ainicitia  vel  ferro,  sibimet  inter  eos  sedes  quaa  hactenus  ha- 
bent  vindicarunt,  a  quo  videlicet  duce  usque  hodie  Dalreudini  vocantur."— 
L.  i.  c.  1. 

I  This  territory,  wliicli  comprehended  the  north,  north-west,  and  part  of  the 
south  of  the  county  of  Antrim,  is  sometimes  confounded  with  Dalaradia, 
which,  as  described  by  Harris,  comprehended  the  south-east  parts  of  the 
same  county,  and  the  greatest  part,  if  not  all,  of  the  county  of  Down. 

§  For  the  truth  of  this  important  and  now  undoubted  historical  fact,  we 
need  but  refer  to  the  admissions  of  Scotch  writers  themselves.  After  men- 
tioning the  notice,  by  Ammianus,  of  Scots  in  Britain,  a.  d.  360,  the  judicious 
Innes  adds,  "  This  may  very  well  agree  with  the  placing  the  coming  in  of 
Eocha  Riada  (the  same  as  Bede's  Reuda),  the  first  leader  of  the  colony  of  the 
Scots  into  Britain,  about  the  beginning  of  the  third  age.  It  is  like  he  brought 
over  at  first  but  a  small  number,  not  to  give  jealousy  to  the  ancient  inhab- 
itants of  these  parts,  the  Caledonians  ;  but  in  the  space  of  one  hundred,  or 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  that  passed  betwixt  the  time  of  their  first 
coming  in,  and  their  being  rnentioned  by  Ammian,  a.  d.  360,  they  might  have 
so  increased  both  within  themselves,  and  by  accession  of  new  auxiliaries 
from  Ireland,  that  the  Caledonians  or  Picts,  finding  them  serviceable  in  their 
wars  against  the  Romans  and  provincial  Britons,  were  easily  disposed  to 
enlarge  their  possessions." — Crit.  Essay,  vol.  ii.  Dissert,  ii.  chap.  2. 

Thus  Pinkerton,  also,  whose  observations  prove  him  to  have  been  tho- 
roughly well  informed  upon  the  subject :— "  Concerning  the  origin  of  the 
Dalreudini  of  Ireland,  all  the  Irish  writers,  Keating,  Usher,  O'Flaherty,  &c. 
&c.  are  concordant,  and  say  tlie  name  sprung  from  Carbry  Riada.  Beda,  a 
superior  authority  to  all  the  Irish  annalists  put  together,  informs  us  that 
this  very  Riada  led  also  the  first  colony  of  Scots  to  North  Britain.  So  that 
the  point  stands  clear,  independently  of  the  lights  which  Kennedy  and 
O'Connor  throw  upon  it."— Enquiry,  part  iv.  chap.  2.  Chalmers,  also,  con- 
curs in  the  same  view.  "  The  new  settlers,"  he  adds,  "  continued,  to  the  age 
of  Bede,  to  be  commonly  called  from  their  original  district  (in  Ireland)  the 
Dalreudini,  though  they  will  be  herein  denominated  the  Scoto-Irish."— CaZe- 
donia,  vol.  i.  book  ii.  chap.  6. 

But  the  most  ancient  testimony  of  the  Scots  of  North  Britain  to  the  de- 
scent of  their  kings  from  the  royal  Irish  race  of  Conary,  is  to  be  found  in  a 
Gaelic  Duan,  or  Poem,  written  by  the  court  bard  of  Malcolm  III.  (about  a.  d. 
1057),  which  has  been  pronounced  the  most  ancient  monument  of  Dalriadic 
history  remaining.  For  this  very  curious  genealogical  poem,  see  Ogyg.  Vind. 
chap.  X.    Rer.  Hibern.  Script,  prol.  i.    Pinkerton's  Enquiry,  part  iv.  chap.  5. 


116  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

As  at  this  period,  and  for  a  long  course  of  centuries  after, 
the  name  of  Scoti,  or  Scots,  was  applied  exclusively  to  the 
Irish,  1  shall,  to  avoid  confusion  in  speaking  of  the  country 
now  known  as  Scotland,  call  it  either  North  Britain,  or  else 
by  the  name  which  it  bore  in  those  early  days,  Alba,  or  Al- 
bany. 

The  most  tedious,  as  well  as  most  sanguinary  of  the  many 
wars  in  which  the  monarch  of  the  Hundred  Battles  was  en- 
gaged, was  that  maintained  by  him  against  the  heroic  Mogh- 
Nuad,  king  of  the  province  of  Leinster,  during  which  the  lat- 
ter carried  away  the  palm  of  victory  in  no  less  than  ten  suc- 
cessive pitched  battles.  In  consequence  of  these  numerous 
defeats,  to  so  low  an  ebb  was  the  power  of  the  monarch  reduced, 
that  his  antagonist  became  at  length  possessor  of  one  half  of  the 
kingdom.  A  new  division  of  the  country  accordingly  took 
place*,  which  continued,  nominally  at  least,  to  be  recognized 
to  a  late  period,  assigning  the  northern  part,  under  the  name 
of  Leath-Cuinn,  or  Con's  half,  to  the  monarch ;  while  the 
southern,  under  the  designation  of  Leath-Mogh,  or  Mogh's  half, 
fell  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  crown  of  Munster. 

The  most  accomplished  of  all  the  Milesian  princes, 
okj'  whether  as  legislator,  soldier,  or  scholar,  was,  according 
'  to  the  general  report  of  all  his  historians,  the  monarch 
Cormac  Ulfadha,  wlio  flourished  about  the  middle  of  the  third 
century,  and  was  the  only  one  of  the  few  sensible  princes 
whom  the  line  of  Milesius  produced  that  was  able  to  inspire 
enough  of  respect  for  his  institutions  to  secure  their  existence 
beyond  his  own  life-time.  To  his  munificence  and  love  of 
learning  the  country  was  indebted,  it  is  said,  for  the  foundation 
of  three  Academies  at  Tara :  in  the  first  of  which  the  science 
of  war  was  taught ;  in  the  second,  historical  literature ;  while 
the  third  academy  was  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  jurispru- 
dence. It  was  a  remarkable  tribute  to  the  powerful  influences 
of  literature  (if  the  learning  of  the  Fileas  and  Seanachies  may 
be  dignified  with  that  name),  that  the  various  schemes  of  state 
reform  brought  forward  by  these  legislators  all  commenced 
with  the  reformation  of  the  Literary  Order.  Among  the  rest, 
the  monarch  Cormac,  who  was  himself  a  distinguished  ornament 
of  that  class,  applied  his  earliest  care  to  the  correcting  of  those 
abuses  which  had,  in  the  course  of  time,  deteriorated  its  spirit. 
Under  his  auspices,  too,  a  general  revision  of  the  annals  of  the 
kingdom  was  entered  upon ;  and  the  national  records  which, 

*  According  to  O'Flaherty,  this  division  of  the  kingdom  continued  in  re- 
ality but  a  year ;— "  in  reputation,  however,"  says  Harris,  •'  it  subsists  among 
the  Irish  to  this  day." 


CORMAC    ULFADHA.  117 

since  the  days  of  the  illustrious  Ollamh,  had  been  kept  regu- 
larly, it  is  said,  in  the  Psalter  of  Tara,  received  such  correc- 
tions and  improvements  as  the  growth  of  knowledge  since  that 
remote  period  must  have  suggested.  It  is  even  alleged  that, 
in  the  course  of  this  reign,  was  introduced  that  mode  of  ascer- 
tauiing  the  dates  of  regal  successions,  called  Synchronism,  which 
consists  in  collating  the  times  of  the  respective  reigns  with 
those  of  contemporary  Princes  m  other  countries.  This  form 
of  chronology  was  adopted  also  by  an  Irish  historian  of  the 
eleventh  century,  named  Flann,  whose  annals,  formed  upon 
this  principle,  are  said  to  be  still  extant  in  the  valuable  library 
at  Stowe.  It  is,  however,  not  easy  to  conceive,  that  so  gene- 
ral a  knowledge  of  foreign  history  as  this  task  of  synchroni- 
zing seems  necessarily  to  imply,  and  which,  even  in  writers  so 
late  as  Tigernach  and  Flann*,  is  sufficiently  remarkable,  could 
have  been  found  among  a  people  so  entirely  secluded  from 
most  of  the  other  European  nations,  as  were  the  Irish  in  the 
time  of  their  king  Cormac. 

The  abdication  of  the  supreme  power  by  this  monarch,  in 
the  full  vigour  of  his  age  and  faculties,  was  the  consequence, 
it  appears,  of  an  ancient  law  or  custom  of  the  country,  which 
forbade  that  any  one  who  was  affected  with  a  personal  blemish 
should  hold  possession  of  the  throne ;  and  as,  in  resistmg  a 
rebellious  attack  on  his  palace,  he  incurred  the  loss  of  an  eyef, 
this  accomplished  monarch  was  thereby  disqualified  from  longer 
retaining  the  sovereignty.  In  the  law  thus  enforced  may  be 
observed  another  instance,  rather  remarkable,  of  coincidence 
with  the  rules  and  customs  of  the  East.    In  a  like  manner,  we 

*  Flannus  Junior,  Flann  Mainistreach  cognominatus,  cujus  Synchrona 
pariter  extant  in  vetusto  codice  membraneo  ejusdem  Bibliothecse,  No.  i. 
quique  obiit  anno  1056,  plura  itidem  subministravit,  quibus  traditio  historica 
auctoritate  cosetanea  fulcitur.— iicr.  Hibern.  Script.  Ep.  JVwnc. 

A  list  of  no  less  than  fourteen  poems  attributed  to  this  synchronist,  who 
is  known  also  by  the  title  of  Flann  of  Bute,  is  given,  in  Mr.  O'Reilly's  chro- 
nological list  of  Irish  writers,  as  being  still  preserved  in  the  Book  of  Leacan, 
in  the  O'Cleary's  Book  of  Invasions,  and  other  such  collections. 

t  We  find  this  accident  otherwise  accounted  for,  in  a  curious  narrative, 
containing  some  picturesque  circumstances,  which  General  Vallancey  gives 
as  a  translation  from  an  old  Irish  law  book.  Ceallach  Mac-Cormac,  a  kins- 
man, as  it  appears,  of  the  monarch,  having  carried  away,  by  force,  the  niece 
of  another  Irish  chieftain,  the  latter,  determined  to  take  revenge  for  the 
insult,  hurried  to  Tara,  the  royal  residence,  where  the  offender  was  then  a 
guest.  "  He  made  directly  towards  Tara,"  says  the  MS.,  "  where  he  arrived 
after  sunset.  Now,  there  was  a  law  prohibiting  any  person  from  coming 
armed  into  Tara  after  sunset,  so  he  went  unarmed,  and,  taking  down  Cor- 
macs  spear  from  the  place  where  it  hung  in  the  hall  of  Tara,  he  killed 
Ceallach  Mac-Cormac  on  the  spot,  and  drawing  back  the  spear  with  great 
force,  the  ferrol  struck  out  Cormac's  eye,  and  wounded  the  Reactaire,  or 
Judge  of  Tara,  in  the  back,  of  which  he  die±— Fragment  of  the  Brehon  Laws. 


118  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

read  in  the  Persian  history,  that  the  soabf  the  monarch  Kobad, 
having  by  a  singular  accident  lost  the  use  of  an  eye,  was  in 
consequence  precluded,  by  an  old  law  of  the  country,  from  all 
right  of  succession  to  the  throne. 

The  nature  of  the  religious  opinions  held  by  this  monarch 
have  been  made  a  subject  of  some  discussion ;  and  the  reverend 
librarian  of  Stowe  has  thought  it  no  waste  of  his  learned 
leisure  to  devote  a  distinct  chapter  to  the  consideration  of  "  the 
Religion  of  king  Cormac."  By  some  writers  it  is  alleged,  that 
he  was  converted  to  Christianity  seven  years  before  his  death ; 
being,  it  is  added,  the  third  person  in  Ireland  who  professed 
that  faith  before  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.  That  this  prince 
was  enlightened  enough  to  reject  the  superstitions  of  the 
Druids,  and  that,  in  consequence  of  his  free  thinking  on  such 
subjects,  he  had  that  powerful  body  opjxjsed  to  him  throughout 
the  whole  of  his  reign,  there  appears  little  reason  to  doubt ; 
but  whether  he  substituted  any  purer  form  of  faith  for  that 
which  he  had  repudiated,  is  a  jjoint  not  so  easily  ascertained. 
A  circumstance  recorded  of  him,  however,  shows  how  vigor- 
ously he  could  repress  intolerance  and  cruelty,  even  when  di- 
rected against  a  body  of  religionists  to  whom  he  was  himself 
opposed.  Among  the  ancient  institutions  of  Tara  was  a  6ort 
of  College  of  Sacred  Virgins,  whose  vocation  it  appears  to 
have  been,  like  the  Dryads  or  fortune-tellers  among  the  Gauls, 
to  divine  the  future  for  the  indulgence  of  the  superstitious  or 
the  credulous.  In  one  of  those  incursions,  or  forays,  of  which 
the  territory  of  the  monarch  was  so  ollen  the  object,  Uie  place 
where  these  holy  Druidesses  resided*,  and  which  bore  the  name 
of  "  The  Retreat  until  Death,"  was  attacked  by  the  troops  of 
the  king  of  Leinster,  and  the  whole  of  its  sacred  inmates,  to- 
gether with  their  handmaids,  most  inhumanly  massacred.f 
This  brutal  sacrilege  the  monarch  punished  by  putting  twelve 
of  the  Lagenian  chieftains  most  concerned  in  it  to  death,  and 
exacting  rigorously  the  Boarian  tribute  from  the  province  to 
which  they  belonged. 

In  the  course  of  this  reign  considerable  additions  are  said  to 
have  been  made  to  that  body  of  laws,  or  legal  axioms,  which 

*  "  Dryades  erant  Gallicana;  mulieres  fatidicsE."— -Sa/mas.  in  Lamprid. 
*'  Dicebat  quodem  tempore  Aurelianum  Gallicanas  consuluisse  Dryadas." — 
Vopisc.  in  j9urel.  We  have  Toland's  authority  for  there  having  been  Druid- 
esses in  Ireland  ;  and  Gealcossa's  Mount,  as  he  tells  us,  situated  in  Inisowen, 
in  the  county  of  Donegal,  was  so  called  from  a  female  Druid  of  that  name. 
*'  Her  name,"  he  adds,  "  is  of  the  Homerical  strain,  signifying  The  White- 
legged.  On  this  hill  is  her  grave,  and  hard  by  is  her  temple,  being  a  sort  of 
diminutive  Stonehenge,  which  many  of  the  old  Irish  dare  not,  even  at  this 
day,  any  way  profane."— Ze«eri'  to  Lord  Molcsworth. 

t  Annal.  IV.  Magist.  ad  ann.  241. 


FIN   MAC-CUMHAL,    OR    FINGAL.  119 

had  been,  from  time  to  time,  compiled,  under  the  name  of  Ce- 
lestial Judgments ;  and,  among  other  contributors  to  this  great 
legislative  work,  is  mentioned  Finn  Mac-Cumhal — or,  as  known 
to  modern  ears,  Fingal — the  son-in-law  to  the  monarch  Cormac, 
and  general  of  the  famed  Fianna  Eirinn,  or  ancient  Irish  militia. 
It  has  been  the  fate  of  this  popular  Irish  hero,  after  a  long 
course  of  traditional  renown  in  his  own  country,  where  his 
name  still  lives,  not  only  in  legends  and  songs,  but  in  the  yet 
more  indelible  record  of  scenery  connected  with  his  memory*, 
to  have  been,  at  once,  transferred  by  adoption  to  another  coun- 
try, and  start,  under  a  new  but  false  shape,  in  a  fresh  career 
of  fame.  Besides  being  himself  an  illustrious  warrior  and 
bard,  this  chief  transmitted  also  to  his  descendants,  Oisin  and 
Osgar,  the  gifts  of  heroism  and  song ;  and  died,  by  the  lance, 
as  we  are  told,  of  an  assassin,  in  the  year  273, 

In  the  humble  abode  v/here  king  Cormac  passed  his  latter 
daysj-— a  thatched  cabin,  as  it  is  said,  at  Aicill,  or  Kellsf,— 
he  produced  those  works  which  entitle  his  name  to  a  place  in 
the  list  of  Royal  Authors.  '^The  Advice  to  a  King,"  which 
he  wrote  for  the  instruction  of  his  son,  Carbre,  on  resigning  to 
him  the  throne,  is  said  to  have  been  extant  so  late  as  the 
seventeenth  century| ;  as  well  as  a  poem  likewise  attributed 

*  "  I  must  not  omit  that,  in  the  centre  of  this  county  (the  county  of  Done- 
gal), the  cloud-capt  mountain_of  Alt  Os?oin  presides,  and  around  him  is  the 
whole  scenery  of  Ossian  and  i^ingal,  which  has  been  so  beautifully  described 
by  Mr,  Macpherson,  and  to  the  northward  of  Lough  Dearg  are  the  mountains, 
caverns,  and  lakes  of  Finn,  or  tinga.\ ."—Collect an.  de  Reb.  Hibem,  No,  xii. 

A  writer  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy  (vol,  xv,),  men- 
tions a  great  rock  in  the  county  of  Meath,  under  shelter  of  which  Finn  and 
his  faithful  wolf-dog,  Brann,  once  rested  from  the  chase  ;  and  it  is  added  that 
on  the  top  of  the  hill  of  Shanthamon,  in  the  county  of  Cavan,  may  be  seen 
his  "  Fingers,"  in  the  shape  of  five  enormous  stones,  each  about  five  feet 
high,  and  of  four  tons  weight.  A  similar  tribute  has  been  paid  to  our  Irish 
heroes  by  that  country  of  poesy  and  song  which  has  adopted  them  as  her  own. 
"  All  over  the  Highlands,"  says  Sir  John  Sinclair  (Dissert,  on  the  Authen- 
ticity, &c.),  the  names  of  Ossian,  Fingal,  Comhal,  Trenmor,  Cuchuliin,  are 
still  familiar,  and  held  in  the  greatest  respect.  Straths  or  valleys,  mountains, 
rocks,  rivers,  are  named  after  them.  There  are  a  hundred  places  in  the  High- 
lands and  Isles  which  derive  their  name  from  the  Feinne,  and  from  circum- 
stances connected  with  their  history." 

t  In  his  first  version,  from  an  Irish  MS.,  of  the  details  of  the  accident  by 
which  Cormac  lost  his  eye.  General  Vallancey  printed  and  published  the  fol- 
lowing  sentence ;  "  But  the  famous  Aicill  performed  a  cure  for  his  eye." 
Finding  subsequently,  however,  that  Aicill  was  not  a  physician,  i)ut  a  small 
town  in  the  county  of  Meath,  he  thus  corrected  the  passage  ;  "  Cormac  was 
sent  to  Aicill  to  be  cured."  This  mistake  of  the  great  Irish  scholar  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  some  dull  fucetiousness  in  Doctor  Campbell's  Strictures, 
Sect,  3. 

X  Bishop  Nicholson -has,  by  an  oversight,  transferred  both  this  work  and 
the  son  for  whom  ii  was  written,  to  Cormac  Mac-Cuillenan,  the  Royal  Com- 
piler of  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  who  died  in  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century. 
The  confusion  is  carried  still  further  by  representing  the  latter  also  as  having 
died  in  "  a  thatched  house  at  Anachiul,  inCeananus  near  Tara."— Jr^s^  Lib. 
Appendix. 


120  HISTORY    OF    IRELATiD. 


I 


to  him,  on  the  virtues  of  the  number  Three, — ^somewhat  re^ 
sembling,  most  probably,  the  Gryphus  of  the  poet  Ausonius  or 
the  same  mysterious  subject. 

Among  the  remarkable  events  that  passed  during  the  reign 
of  this  monarch,  it  is  worthy  of  mention  that,  after  having  de- 
feated the  Ultonians,  in  a  great  battle  at  Granard,  he  banished 
numbers  of  the  people  of  that  province  to  the  Isle  of  Man  and 
the  Hebrides.  That  the  island  of  Eubonia,  as  Man  was  then 
called,  belonged  in  early  times  tolreland,  appears  from  Ptolemy^ 
by  whom  it  is  marked  as  a  dependency  of  that  country ;  and^ 
in  a  work  attributed  to  the  cosmographer  iEthicus,  we  are  told^ 
"  The  Isle  of  Man,  as  well  as  Hibernia,  is  inhabited  by  tribee 
of  the  Scots."*  In  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  it  was  still  an  Irish 
island,  and  the  favourite  resort  of  such  holy  persons  as  wished 
to  devote  themselves  to  a  life  of  seclusion  and  prayer. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  Carbre,  the  son  and  successor  of  Cor- 
mac,  that  the  famous  Fianna  Eirinn,  or  Militia  of  Erin,  whose 
achievements  formed  so  often  the  theme  of  our  ancient  ro- 
mances and  songs,  was,  in  consequence  of  the  dissensions 
within  its  own  body,  as  well  as  of  the  formidable  degree  of 
power  which  it  had  attained,  put  down  summarily  by  force- 
This  national  army  had  been  for  some  time  divided  into  two 
rival  septs,  the  Clanna  Boisgne,  commanded  by  Oisin,  the  son 
of  Finn,  and  the  Clanna  Morna,  which  was  at  this  time  pro- 
tected by  the  king  of  Munster ;  and  the  rights  claimed  by  the 
former  sept,  to  take  precedence  of  all  other  military  tribes,  had 
been  long  a  source  of  violent  feuds  between  their  respective 
chieft;ains.  A  celebrated  contention  of  this  nature  between 
Goll  and  Finn  Mac-Cumhal,  near  the  palace  of  the  latter  at 
Almhainf ,  had  risen  to  such  a  height  that  it  could  only  be  ap- 
peased, we  are  told,  by  the  intervention  of  the  bards,  who, 
shaking  the  Chain  of  Silence  between  the  chiefs,  succeeded 
in  calming  their  strife.f     To  such  a  pitch,  however,  had  the 

*  "  Hibernia  a  Scotorum  gentibus  colitur.— Menavia  insula  aeque  ac  Hi- 
bernia a  Scotorum  gentibus  habitatur." — Cosmog. 

t  "  Situated  in  Leinster,  on  the  summit  of  Allen,  or  rather,  as  the  natives 
of  that  country  pronounce  it,  Allowin.  The  village  and  bog  of  Allen  have 
thence  derived  their  name.  There  are  still  the  remains  of  some  trenches  on 
the  top  of  the  hill  where  Finn  Mac  Cumhal  and  his  Fians  were  wont  to 
celebrate  their  feasts."— £)r.  Young,  Trans.  Irish  Acad. 

X  "  The  Book  of  Howth  affirms  that,  in  the  battle  between  the  Fenii  and 
Carbre,  the  Fenii  were  all  destroyed,  Oisin  excepted  ;  and  that  he  lived  till 
the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  to  whom  he  related  the  exploits  of  the  Fenii."— iJc/ics 
of  Irish  Poetry.  See  also  Walker's  Irish  Bards.  "  It  would  be  tedious,"  adds 
Miss  Brooke,  "  to  relate  the  various  causes  assigned  by  different  writers  for 
this  battle.  Historians  in  general  lay  the  chief  blame  upon  the  Fenii ;  and 
the  poets,  taking  part  with  their  favourite  heroes,  cast  the  odium  upon  Carbre, 
then  monarch  of  Ireland.    The  fault,  most  likely,  was  mutual." 


OSSIAX.  121 

presumption  of  the  Clanna  Boisgne  at  length  arrived,  that  in 
the  reign  of  Carbre,  having  had  the  audacity  to  defy  the  throne 
itself,  they  were  attacked  by  the  united  force  of  almost  all  the 
royal  troops  of  the  kingdom  (the  king  of  Munster  alone  taking 
part  with  the  rebellious  Fians),  and  a  battle,  memorable  for  its 
extent  of  carnage,  ensued,  in  which  Osgar,  the  son  of  Oisin, 
or  Ossian,  was  slain  by  the  monarch's  own  hand,  and  scarcely 
a  man  of  the  Clanna  Boisgne  escaped  the  slaughter  of  that 
day.  The  victorious  monarch,  too,  surviving  but  a  short  time 
his  dreadful  combat  with  Osgar,  was  himself  numbered  among 
the  slain. 

The  fame  of  this  fatal  battle  of  Gabhra,  and  the  brave  war- 
riors who  fell  in  it,  continued  long  to  be  a  favourite  theme  of 
the  Irish  bards  and  romancers ;  and  upon  no  other  foundation 
than  the  old  songs  respecting  the  heroes  of  this  combat,  mixed 
up  with  others  relating  to  chieftains  of  a  still  more  ancient 
date,  has  been  raised  that  splendid  fabric  of  imposture  which, 
under  the  assumed  name  of  Ossian,  has  for  so  long  a  period 
dazzled  and  deceived  the  world* ;  being  not  more  remarkable 
for  the  skiJl  and  fancy  displayed  in  its  execution  than  for  the 
intrepidity  with  which  its  author  presumed  on  the  general 
ignorance  and  credulity  of  his  readers. 

The  close  connexion  of  this  work  of  Macpherson  with  the 
History  of  Ireland,  as  well  as  of  North  Britain,  at  this  period, 
and  the  false  views  which  it  is  meant  to  convey  of  the  early 
relations  between  the  two  countries,  demand  for  it  a  degree  of 
notice  in  these  pages  to  which,  as  a  mere  work  of  fiction,  how- 
ever brilliant,  it  could  not  have  any  claim.  Such  notice,  too, 
appears  the  more  called  for,  from  the  circumstance  of  this  fa- 
brication forming  but  one  of  a  long  series  of  attempts,  on  the 
part  of  Scottish  writers,  to  confound  and  even  reverse  the  his- 
torical affinities  between  the  two  countries,  for  the  purpose  of 
claiming,  as  the  property  of  Scotland,  not  only  those  high 
heroic  names  and  romantic  traditions  which  belong  to  the  twi- 
light period  of  Irish  history  we  are  now  considering,  but  also 
the  most  distinguished  of  those  numerous  saints  and  scholars, 
who  are  known,  at  a  later  and  more  authentic  period,  to  have 
illustrated  our  annals.  This  notable  scheme,  to  which  the 
community  of  the  name  of  Scotia  between  the  two  countries 
afforded  peculiar  facilities,  commenced  so  early  as  the  thir- 
teenth century,  when,  on  the  claim  advanced  by  Edward  I.  to 

*  "  There  are  at  least  three  Poems,  of  considerable  antiquity,  in  Irish, 
written  on  the  battle  of  Gabhra,  upon  which  Mr.  Macpherson  founded  his 
poem  of  'Temora:"— Essay  to  investigate  the  Authenticity,  &c.,  by  Edward 
O'Reilly,  Esq. 

Vol.  L  11 


122  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

a  feudal  superiority  over  Scotland,  it  became  an  object  with 
the  people  of  that  country  to  assert  the  independency  of  the 
Scotish  crown,  and  when  for  the  first  time  pretensions  were  set 
up  by  them  to  a  scheme  of  antiquities  of  their  own,  partly 
borrowed  from  that  of  the  parent  country,  but  chiefly  intended 
to  supersede  and  eclipse  it. 

Tlie  pretensions  but  faintly  sketched  out  at  that  crisis,  as- 
sumed, in  the  hands  of  succeeding  chroniclers,  a  more  decided 
shape ;  till  at  length,  with  the  aid  of  the  forged  authorities 
brought  fonvard  by  Hector  Boece*,  an  addition  of  from  forty  to 
five-and-forty  Scotish  kings  were  at  once  interpolated  in  the 
authentic  Irish  list  of  the  Dalriadic  rulers ;  by  which  means 
the  commencement  of  the  Scotish  kingdom  in  Britain  was  re- 
moved from  its  true  historical  date, — about  the  beginning,  as 
we  shall  see,  of  the  sixth  century, — to  as  far  back  as  three 
hundred  and  thirty  years  before  the  Incarnation. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  far  more  in  political  objects 
and  designs  than  in  any  romantic  or  vain-glorious  ambition,  is 
to  be  found  the  source  of  most  of  these  efforts  on  the  part  of 
the  Scotch  to  construct  for  themselves  this  sort  of  spurious 
antiquity.  We  have  seen  that  the  first  notions  of  such  a 
scheme  arose  out  of  the  claims  set  up  by  Edward  I.  to  a  right 
of  superiority  over  Scotland ;  and  as  the  English  monarch  had 
backed  his  pretensions  by  reference  to  a  long  line  of  kings, 
through  which  he  professed  to  have  descended  from  Brutus, 
Locrine,  Albanact,  &o,,  tlie  Scotch,  in  their  counter-monio- 
rialsf,  deemed  it  politic  to  have  recourse  to  a  similar  parade  of 
antiquity,  and  brought  forward,  for  the  first  time,  their  addi- 
tional supply  of  ancient  kings,  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
occasion.  In  like  manner,  when,  at  a  later  period,  their  elo- 
quent Buchanan  lent  all  the  attractions  of  his  style  to  adorn 
and  pass  into  currency  the  absurd  legends  of  Hector  Boece 
respecting  the  forty  kings,  it  was  not  that  he  conceived  any 
glory  or  credit  could  redound  to  his  country  from  such  forge- 
riesj,  but  because  the  examples  he  found  in  these  pretended 

*  Innes  acquits  his  countryman  Boece  of  having  been  himself  the  author 
of  this  forgery.— Ch.  ii.  art.  ii.  §  8. 

t  These  memorials,  which  were  addressed  to  the  Pope,  are  to  be  found  in 
Ilearne's  edition  of  Fordun.  "  Those  productions  of  the  Scots  (says  Innes), 
I  mean  as  to  their  remote  antiquities,  ought  to  be  considered  such  as  they 
truly  were,  as  the  pleadings  of  advocates,  who  commonly  make  no  great 
difficulty  to  advance  with  great  assurance  all  that  makes  for  the  advantage 
of  their  cause  or  clients,  though  they  have  but  probable  grounds  and  some- 
times bare  conjectures  to  go  upon."— Critical  Essay. 

X  It  is  but  fair  to  observe,  that  by  none  of  these  writers  was  so  bold  a  de- 
fiance of  the  voice  of  history  ventured  upon  as  to  deny  that  the  Scots  of 
Albany  had  originally  passed  over  from  Ireland.   Even  Sir  George  Mackenzie, 


SPURIOUS    LIST    OF    SCOTISH    KIKGS.  123 

records  of  the  deposition  and  punishment  of  kings  by  their 
subjects,  fell  in  with  the  principles  at  that  time  afloat  respect- 
ing the  king-deposing  power,  and  afforded  precedents  for  that 
right  of  revolt  against  tyranny  which  he  had  himself  so  stre- 
nuously and  spiritedly  advocated.* 

From  this  period  the  boasted  antiquities  of  the  British  Scots 
were  suffered  to  slumber  undisturbed,  till,  on  the  appearance  of 
the  work  of  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  entitled  an  Historical 
Account  of  Ancient  Church  Government  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  when  that  learned  prelate,  having  occasion  to  notice 
the  fabricated  succession  of  Scotish  kings  from  an  imaginary 
Fergus  L,  exposed  the  falsehood  and  utter  absurdity  of  the 
whole  fable.  This  simply  historical  statement  called  forth  a 
champion  of  the  forty  phantom  kings,  in  the  person  of  Sir 
George  Mackenzie,  the  King's  Advocate  for  Scotland,  who, 
resenting  warmly,  as  "  a  degree  of  leze-majeste,"  this  curtail- 
ment of  the  royal  line,  went  so  far  as  to  identify  the  honour 
and  safety  of  the  British  monarchy  with  the  credit  of  the  fabu- 
lous kings  of  Boece.f  It  is,  indeed,  not  a  little  curious  to  ob- 
serve, that  while  political  views  and  objects  continued  to  be 
the  motive  of  most  of  this  zeal  for  the  antiquities  of  their 
country,  the  ground  taken  by  the  Scotish  champions  was  now 
completely  changed ;  and  whereas  Boece,  and,  far  more  know- 
ingly, Buchanan,  had  supported  the  forgery  of  the  forty  kings 
for  the  sake  of  the  weapons  which  it  had  furnished  them 
against  the  sacredness  of  hereditary  monarchy.  Sir  George 
Mackenzie,  on  the  contrary,  overlooking,  or  rather,  perhaps, 
not  acknowledging  this  alleged  tendency  of  the  Scotish  fic- 
tions, upheld  them  as  so  essentially  connected  with  the  very 
foundations  of  the  British  monarchy,  that  to  endeavour  to 
bring  them  into  any  disrepute  was,  in  his  eyes,  a  species  of 
high  treason. 

who  endeavours  to  set  aside  the  relationship  as  much  as  possible,  says,— 
"  We  acknowledge  ourselves  to  have  come  last  from  Ireland  ;"  while  of  all 
those  Scotish  writers  who  preceded  him  iu  the  same  track,  John  Major, 
Hector  Boece,  Leslie,  Buchanan,  not  a  single  one  has  thought  of  denying  that 
the  Scots  were  originally  of  Irish  extraction.    See  Ogygia  Vindicated,  chap.  3. 

*  In  his  work  Dc  Jure  regni  apud  Scotos. 

t  See  his  letter  to  the  lord  chancellor,  wherein  Sir  George  "  admires  that 
any  of  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain  did  not  think  it  a  degrees  of  lese-majesty 
to  injure  and  shorten  the  royal  line  of  their  kings." 

In  speaking  of  the  Scoto-Irish  chiefs  of  Argyleshire,  Sir  Walter  Scott  says, 
(Hist,  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.  ch. 2.)  "Not  to  incur  the  charge  of  leze-majest6, 
brought  by  Sir  G.  Mackenzie  against  Dr.  Stillingfleet,  for  abridging  the  royal 
pedigree  by  some  links,  we  will  briefly  record  that,  by  the  best  authorities, 
twenty-eight  of  these  Dalriadic  kings  or  chiefs  reigned  successively  in  Argyle- 
shire." It  was,  however,  not  in  reference  to  the  Dalriadic  kings  that  Sir 
George's  remark  was  made,  nor  was  it  directed  against  Stillingfleet,  but 
against  Lloyd,  the  learned  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph, 


124  HISTOBY    OF    IRELAND. 

The  masterly  hand  of  Bishop  Stillingfleet  gave  the  last  blow 
to  that  shadowy  fabric  of  which  Sir  George  Mackenzie  had 
proved  himself  but  a  feeble  defender ;  and  the  pretensions  of 
the  Scots  to  a  high  line  of  antiquity,  independent  of  that  of 
their  ancestors,  the  Irish,  fell,  never  again  to  rise  in  the  same 
ostensible  shape.  But  there  remained  another  mode  of  under- 
mining the  Scotic  history  of  Ireland,  or  rather  of  confounding 
it  with  that  of  the  Scotia  derived  from  her,  so  as  to  transfer  to 
the  offspring  much  of  the  parent's  fame ;  and  of  this  Macpher- 
8on,  with  much  ingenuity,  and  a  degree  of  hardihood  almost 
without  parallel,  availed  himself  Counting  upon  the  obscuri- 
ty of  Irish  history  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era, 
he  saw  that  a  supposed  migi-ation  of  Caledonians  into  that 
country  in  the  first  century,  would  not  only  open  to  him  a  wide 
and  safe  field  for  the  fanciful  creations  he  meditated,  but  would 
also  be  the  means  of  appropriating  to  his  own  country  the 
romantic  fame  of  those  early  heroes  and  bards,  those  tradi- 
tional subjects  of  story  and  song,  which  are,  after  all,  more 
fondly  clung  to  by  every  ancient  people,  than  even  their  most 
authentic  and  most  honourable  history. 

It  is  true  this  adoption  and  appropriation  by  the  British  Scots, 
of  the  songs  and  traditions  of  the  Irish,  had  been  carried  on  for 
ages  before  the  period  when  it  was  so  expertly  turned  to  ac- 
count by  Macpherson ;  being  the  natural  result  of  the  intimate 
intercourse  so  long  subsisting  between  the  two  countries.  The 
original  fragments,  indeed,  of  Erse  poetry,  which  formed  the 
foundation  of  most  of  his  Epics,  were,  in  fact,  but  versions  of 
old  Irish  songs  relating  to  the  Fenian  heroes*,  which,  though 
attributed  to  the  poet  Oisin,  were  the  productions  of  bards  of 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,-  and,  finding  their  way 
among  the  highlanders  of  Britain,  from  the  close  connexion 
between  the  two  countries,  came,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  be 
adopted  by  them,  both  heroes  and  songs,  as  their  own.f 

*  For  the  best  account  of  these  Fenian  Poems,  and  of  the  general  nature  of 
their  style  and  subjects,  the  reader  is  referred  to  an  able  essay  on  the  authen- 
ticity of  Ossian's  Poems,  by  Dr.  William  Hamilton  Drummond,  in  the  16th 
volume  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy.  A  MS.  collection 
of  the  Fenian  tales  and  songs  is  said  to  be  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  James 
Hardiman,  the  intelligent  author  of  the  History  of  Galway. 

t  Even  among  the  Lowlanders,  too,  the  traditional  renown  of  Finn  and 
his  heroes  had  long  made  itself  known,  as  the  following  instance  proves: — 
When  Bruce  was  defeated  by  MacDougal,  Lord  of  Lorn,  he  placed  himself 
in  tlie  rear  of  his  retreating  followers,  and  checked  the  pursuit.  "  Behold 
him,"  said  MacDougal  to  one  of  his  leaders,  "  he  protects  his  followers  against 
us,  as  Gaul,  the  son  of  Morni,  defended  his  tribe  against  the  rage  of  Fingal." 
— Gluoted  from  Barbour,  in  an  article  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  (attributed, 
I  believe  justly,  to  the  pen  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,)  on  the  Report  of  the  Highland 
Society,  vol.  vi.    That  the  true  birth-place,  however,  of  Finn  and  his  heroea 


MACPHERSON^S    OSSIAN.  125 

The  various  adaptations  and  corruptions  of  the  original  ballads 
by  which  this  process  of  naturalization  was  effected,  and  the 
chieftains  Finn,  Oisin,  Osgar,  Cuchullin,  GoU  Mac-Mom  were 
ail  in  the  Erse  songs  converted  into  Highland  heroes,  have 
been  pointed  out  by  critics  familiar  with  the  dialects  of  both 
countries ;  and  though  some  of  the  variations  from  the  original 
ballads  arose,  doubtless,  from  the  want  of  a  written  standard, 
there  occur  others — such  as  the  omissioli  frequently  of  the 
name  of  Ireland,  and  of  St.  Patrick — which  could  have  arisen 
from  no  other  cause  than  a  deliberate  intention  to  deceive.* 

In  all  such  prepense  modes  of  falsification,  Macpherson  im- 
proved boldly  on  his  rude  originalsf ;  though  still  with  so  little 
regard  to  consistency,  as  often  to  justify  the  suspicion,  that  his 
great  success  was  owing  fully  as  much  to  the  willingness  of 
others  to  be  deceived,  as  to  his  own  talent  in  deceiving.  The 
conversion  of  Finn,  an  Irish  chieftain  of  tlie  third  century, 
into  a  Caledonian  "  King  of  Morven,"  and  the  chronological 
blunder  of  giving  him  Cuchullin  for  a  contemporary,  who  had 
flourished  more  than  two  centuries  before,  are  errors,  which, 
gross  as  they  are,  might,  under  cover  of  the  darkness  of  Irish 

was  sometimes  acknowledg;ed  even  in  Scotland,  appears  from  two  verses, 
quoted  in  the  same  article,  from  the  old  Scotch  poet  Douglas  : 

"  Great  Gow  MacMorn,  and  Fin  MacCouI,  and  how 
They  suld  be  Goddis  in  Ireland,  as  men  say." 

Neither  were  the  English  ignorant  of  our  claims  to  these  ancient  heroes 
and  bards,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following  passage  quoted  by  Camden,  in 
speaking  of  the  Irish  : — "  They  think  the  souls  of  the  deceased  are  in  commu- 
nion with  famous  men  of  those  places,  of  whom  they  retain  many  stories  and 
sonnets,  as  of  the  giants  Fin  Mac-Huyle,  OShin  Mac-Owen  ;  and  they  say, 
through  illusion,  that  they  often  see  them." 

The  origin  of  the  addition  of  the  word  Gal  to  Finn's  name  is  thus  satisfac- 
torily explained  ;  Oal,  the  latter  part  of  the  compound,  signifies  a  stranger; 
and  being  applied  by  Scotchmen  to  Fin,  the  son  of  Cumhal,  it  aftbrds  a  deci- 
sive proof  that  they  did  not  consider  him  as  their  countryman."— JBssay  on 
Osslan,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Drummond. 

*  Of  one  of  these  Erse  Poems,  a  Conversation  between  Ossian  and  St.  Pa- 
trick, Dr.  Young  says:—"  The  Highland  Sgeulaiches  have  been  very  busy  in 
corrupting  this  poem,  partly  of  necessity  from  the  want  of  a  written  standard 

From  their  vain  desire  of  attributing  Fin  Mac-Cumhal  and  his  heroes 

to  Scotland,  they  seem  to  have  intentionally  corrupted  it  in  some  passages, 
as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  Erse  copies  with  each  other.  Thus,  in  the 
verse  before  us,  the  word  Ireland  is  omitted."  Again  Dr.  Young  remarks  : — 
"  The  Highland  Sgeulaiches  have  taken  the  liberty  of  totally  perverting  this 
stanza,  and  changing  it  into  another,  which  might  make  Fin  Mac-Cumhal 
their  own  countryman." 

t  The  late  Dr.  Young,  Bishop  of  Clonfert,  who,  in  the  year  1784,  made  a 
tour  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  original  poems 
from  which  Macpherson  had  constructed  his  Epics,  has  accused  him  of  alter- 
ing the  dates  of  his  originals,  of  attributing  to  them  a  much  higher  antiquity 
than  belongs  to  them,  of  suppressing  the  name  of  St.  Patrick,  and,  in  short, 
of  corrupting  and  falsifying,  by  every  means,  even  the  few  scanty  fragments 
of  Irish  poetry  he  could  produce  to  sanction  his  imposture. 
11* 


126  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


history,  at  that  period,  have  been  expected  to  pass  unnoticed. 
But  his  representing  this  Finn,  or  Fingal,  as  in  the  year  208 
commanding  the  Caledonians  against  Caracalla*,  and  then 
bringing  him  forward  again,  at  the  interval  of  more  than  a 
century,  to  contend  with  Cathmor  in  single  combat,  is  one  of 
those  daring  flights  of  improbability  and  absurdity,  upon  which 
none  but  a  Writer  so  conscious  of  his  own  powers  of  imposture 
could  have  ventured.f 

It  is  true  that,  in  most  of  those  poems,  attributed  to  our  bard 
Oisin,  which  furnished  the  grounds,  or  rather  pretext,  for  the 
elaborate  forgeries  of  Macpherson,  the  very  same  license  of 
anachronism  is  found  to  prevail.  The  son  of  Finn,  in  these 
rude  and  spurious  productions,  has  not  only  his  life  prolonged 
as  far  as  the  fifth  century  for  the  convenience  of  Conversing 
with  St.  Patrick,  but  finds  himself  engaged,  so  late  as  the  com- 
mencement of  the  twelfth,  in  single  combat  with  the  Norwe- 
gian king,  Magnus.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that 
these  vagaries  of  chronology  occur  in  detached  pieces  of  poetry, 
written  by  different  authors,  and  at  diiferent  periods ;  vvhereas 
the  pretended  epics  of  Ossian  are  the  production  professedly 
of  one  great  and  known  poet,  at  a  defined  period  of  history ; 
and  yet,  in  the  very  face  of  this  assumed  character,  abound 
with  such  monstrous  anachronisms,  such  utter  confusion  of 
times,  places,  persons,  and  manners  as  renders  the  belief,  for 
so  long  a  period,  in  the  authenticity  of  such  a  work,  one  of  the 
most  startling  marvels  in  all  literary  history. 

To  mention  but  two  or  three  more  instances  in  which  this 
personator  of  a  bard  of  the  third  century  forestalls  the  manners 
and  customs  of  a  far  later  period,  we  find  him  bestowing  on 
his  Irish  heroes,  some  centuries  before  the  coat  of  mail  v.us  in- 

*  See  Gibbon's  detection  of  the  anachronism  of  Macpherson  respecting  Ca- 
racalla,  (vol.  i.  ch.  6.)  where,  however,  he  expresses  himself  with  a  degree  of 
deference  and  timidity  well  deserving  of  Hume's  rebuke  to  him  on  hi>  credu- 
lity. "  You  are  therefore,"  says  his  shrewd  friend,  "  over  and  above  indulgent 
to  us  in  speaking  of  the  matter  with  hesitation." 

t  The  primary  and  insurmountable  argument  against  even  the  possibility 
of  their  authenticity,  is  thus  well  stated  by  Hume  : — "  It  is,  indeed,  strange 
that  any  man  of  sense  could  have  imagined  it  possible  that  above  twenty 
thousand  verses,  along  with  numberless  historical  facts,  could  have  been  pre- 
served by  oral  tradition  during  fifty  generations,  by  the  rudest,  perhaps,  of 
all  the  European  nations,  the  most  necessitous,  the  most  turbulent,  and  the 
most  unsettled.  Where  a  supposition  is  so  contrary  to  common  sense,  any 
positive  evidence  of  it  ought  never  to  be  regarded." — Letter  to  Gibbon,  in 
Qihbov's  Memoirs  of  his  men  Life  and  Writings. 

So  slow,  however,  has  the  delusion  been  in  passing  away,  that  so  late  as 
the  year  1825,  when  Armstrong's  Gaelic  Dictionary  was  published,  we  find 
the  author  of  that  work  boasting  of  Ossian,  as  "  the  great  poet  of  the  Gael," 
and  citing  him  as  authority  for  the  early  manners  and  customs  of  the  High- 
landers. 


MACPHERSON  S    OSSIAN.  127 

troduced,  bright  corslets  of  steel*,  and  describing  castles  as 
existing  in  Ireland,  at  a  time  when  the  most  stately  palaces 
of  her  kings  were  as  yet  constructed  but  of  wood.  In  still 
more  wanton  defiance  both  of  history  and  common  sense,  he 
brings  together  the  expedition  of  Caracalla  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  third  century,  that  of  Carausius  at  its  close,  and 
the  invasions  of  the  Danes  and  Norwegians,  in  the  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries,  as  all  of  them  contemporary  events. 

Not  content  with  the  many  violations  of  chronology  that 
have  been  mentioned,  the  pretended  translator  of  Ossian  takes 
no  less  liberties  both  with  geography  and  topography,  trans- 
porting Moylena,  for  instance,  the  scene  of  two  famous  battles, 
from  the  King's  County  to  Ulster,  and  transferring  even  Tea- 
mor,  or  Tara,  the  celebrated  residence  of  the  ancient  monarchs 
from  its  natural  site  in  Meath  to  the  same  northern  province.f 
While  thus  lavishing  upon  Ulster  glories  that  do  not  belong  to 
it,  he  has,  on  the  other  hand,  robbed  it  of  some  peculiarly  its 
own ;  and  passing  in  silence  over  the  memorable  Emania,  the 
seat  of  the  old  Ultonian  kings,  he  has  chosen  to  substitute  some 
castle  of  Tura,  his  own  invention,  in  its  place.  Instead  of 
Craove-Roe,  too,  the  military  school  of  the  Red-Branch  Knights, 
near  Emania,  he  has  called  up  some  structure,  under  the  exotic 
name  of  Muri's  Hall,  which  is  no  less  the  baseless  fabric  of 
his  own  fancy  than  the  castle  of 'Tura.| 

It  may  be  thought  that  animadversions  of  this  nature  upon 
a  romance  still  so  popular,  belong  more  properly  to  the  depart- 
ment of  criticism  than  of  history.  But  a  work  which  Gibbon, 
in  tracing  the  fortunes  of  Imperial  Rome,  has  turned  aside 
from  his  stately  march  to  notice,  may  well  lay  claim  to  some 
portion  of  attention  from  the  humble  historian  of  the  country 
to  which  all  the  Chiefs  so  fabulously  commemorated  by  it,  in 
reality  belonged.  Had  the  aim  of  the  forgery  been  confined 
to  the  ordinary  objects  of  romance,  namely,  to  delight  and  in- 
terest, any  such  grave  notice  of  its  anachronisms  and  incon- 

*  "  The  Irish  annalists  speak  of  the  Danes  in  the  latter  end  of  the  eighth 
century,  as  being  covered  with  armour;  but  they  never  speak  of  the  Irish 
troops  being  so  equipped.  Giraldus  Cambrensis  describes  particularly  the 
arms  of  the  Irish,  but  says  not  one  word  of  their  wearing  armour:''— Essay 
upon  Ossian,  by  Edward  O'Reilly,  Esq. 

t  For  a  more  detailed  exposure  of  these,  and  many  other  such  blunders, 
see  Dissertation  on  the  First  Migrations  and  Final  Settlement  of  the  Scots  in 
North  Britain,  by  Mr.  O'Connor,  of  Belanagare. 

X  The  fortress  of  Tura  is,  indeed,  mentioned  by  Mr.  Beauford,  who,  as 
an  authority,  however,  is  of  little  more  value  than  Macpherson  himself:— 
"  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Cromla,"  says  this  writer,  "  stood  the  rath  or  for- 
tress of  Tura,  called  by  the  Irish  writers  Alich  Neid."— ^ncjenf  Topography 
of  Ireland. 


128  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

eistencies  would  have  been  here  misplaced.  But  the  imposture 
of  Macpherson  was,  at  the  least,  as  much  historical  as  poetical. 
His  suppression,  for  it  could  hardly  have  been  ignorance*,  of 
the  true  history  of  the  Irish  settlement  in  Argyleshire,  so  early 
as  the  middle  of  the  third  century, — a  fact  fatal  to  the  whole 
groundwork  of  his  pretended  Scottish  history, — -could  have 
proceeded  only  from  a  deliberate  system  of  deception,  having 
for  its  object  so  far  to  reverse  the  historical  relationship  be- 
tween the  two  countries,  as  to  make  Scotland  the  sole  source 
of  all  those  materials  for  poetry  which  she  had  in  reality  de- 
rived through  colonization  from  Ireland. 

The  weight  given  to  these  compositions,  as  historical  evi- 
dences, by  the  weak  credulity  with  which  they  were  at  first 
received,  hsis  now  long  passed  away.  But  it  ought  never,  in 
recording  the  "  follies  of  the  wise,"  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
critical  Blair  believed  implicitly  in  the  genuineness  of  these 
rhapsodies;  and  that  by  two  grave  historians,  Henry  and  Whita- 
ker,  they  have  been  actually  referred  to  as  authentic  historical 
documents ;  the  former  liaving  made  use  of  their  authority  in 
illustrating  the  early  poetry  of  the  Britons,  while  the  latter, 
in  his  account  of  the  expedition  of  the  emperor  Severus  into 
North  Britain,  makes  up  for  the  silence  of  all  the  ancient  his- 
torians, as  to  its  details,  by  some  important  particulars  derived 
from  the  authentic  page  of  the  Bard  of  Selma ;  informing  us 
that  Fingal,  who  was  at  that  time,  as  it  seems,  the  Pendragon 
of  Caledonia,  negotiated  a  peace  with  the  Romansf,  upon  the 
banks  of  the  river  Carron.  With  the  same  ludicrous  serious- 
ness, in  relating  the  events  of  the  naval  expedition,  under  Niall 
Giallach,  against  the  coasts  of  Britain,  he  describes  the  move- 
ments of  the  numerous  navy  of  the  ancient  Irish,  the  boatmen 

*  Some  of  liis  own  countrymen  think  more  charitably  of  him : — "Above 
all,"  says  a  writer  already  referred  to,  "  Macpherson  was  ignorant  of  the  real 
history  of  the  colony  of  the  Dalriads,  or  Irish  Scots,  who  possessed  themselves 
of  a  part  of  Argyleshire,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century  ;  an  indubitable 
fact,  inconsistent  with  his  whole  system." — Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xvi., 
Report  of  the  Highland  Society.  We  arc,  however,  justified  in  imputing  to 
Macpherson  something  much  worse  than  ignorance,  when,  in  works  profess- 
edly liistorical  and  argumentative,  we  find  him  falling  into  the  same  disin- 
genuous practices,  aiid  not  hesitating  to  alter,  suppress  or  falsify,  according 
as  it  suited  liis  immediate  purpose.  Of  all  this  he  is  proved  to  have  been 
guilty  in  liis  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  "  The 
total  omission,"  says  his  opponent,  "  of  some  expressions  that  must  have 
disproved  the  application  of  the  passages,  the  careful  discharge  of  all  hostile 
words  from  the  quotations,  and  the  oflkious  interpolation  of  friendly  in  their 
room — facts  that  appear  evident  upon  the  face  of  the  extracts  above — cer- 
tainly give  an  unhappy  aspect  of  disingenuousness  to  the  whole,  and  may 
seem  to  discredit  the  integrity  and  honour  of  Mr.  Macpherson."— Genuine 
History  of  the  Britons  Asserted,  chap.  i. 

t  History  of  Manchester,  book  i.  chap.  xii.  sect.  2. 


ALLIANCE    OF    THE    IRISH    AND    PICTS.  129 

singing  to  the  chime  of  their  oars,  and  the  music  of  the  harp, — 
the  shield  of  the  admiral  hung  upon  the  mast,  "  a  sufficient 
mark  of  itself  in  the  day,  and  frequently  beat  as  a  signal  at 
night," — all  upon  the  joint  authority  of  the  poets  Claudian  and 
Ossian ! 

In  one  point  of  view,  the  imposture  has  not  been  unservice- 
able to  the  cause  of  historical  truth,  inasmuch  as,  by  directing 
public  attention  to  the  subject,  it  has  led  to  a  more  correct  and 
more  generally  difRised  knowledge  of  the  early  relations  be- 
tween Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  rendered  impossible,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  any  recurrence  of  that  confusion  between  the  annals 
of  the  two  countries, — that  mist  thrown  purposely,  in  many 
instances,  around  their  early  connexion, — in  which  alone  such 
antiquarian  pretensions  and  historical  fictions  as  those  of  Fordun, 
Hector  Boece,  Dempster,  and  lastly,  Macpherson  himself,  could 
have  hoped  to  escape  detection.  The  spirit  of  inquiry,  too, 
that  was  awakened  by  so  long  a  course  of  controversy,  has 
proved  favourable  no  less  to  the  literary  than  to  the  historical 
claims  of  ancient  Ireland ;  as  it  was  found  that,  in  her  songs 
and  romances,  which  had  been  adopted  by  the  Scots  of  Britain, 
as  well  as  her  heroes,  lay  the  groundwork,  however  scanty,  of 
this  modern  fabric  of  fiction ;  that,  so  far  from  her  descendants, 
the  Scots  of  Albany,  having  any  pretensions  to  an  original 
literature  or  distinct  school  of  poesy,  there  had  never  existed, 
among  the  Highlanders,  any  books  but  Irish* ;  and  while  the 
scholars  of  Ireland  could  boast  of  manuscripts  in  their  own 
tongue,  near  a  thousand  years  old,  it  was  not  till  so  late  as  the 
year  1778  that  even  a  Grammar  of  the  Erse  dialect  of  the 
Gaelic  was  in  existence. 

It  has  been  already  mentioned,  that  between  the  Irish  and 
the  first  inhabitants  of  North  Britain  there  had  commenced  an 
intercourse  at  a  very  early  period.  According  to  all  accounts, 
the  ancient  Pictish  colony  that  finally  fixed  themselves  in 
Britain,  had,  on  their  way  to  that  country,  rested  for  a  time  in 
Ireland,  and  had  been  provided  from  thence,  at  their  own  re- 
quest, with  wives.  The  friendship  founded  upon  this  early 
connexion  was  kept  alive  by  continued  intercourse  between 
the  two  nations ;  and  though  the  footing  the  Irish  obtained  in 
the  third  century  upon  the  western  coast  of  North  Britain, 

*  "  It  might  boldly  be  averred  that  the  Irish,  who  have  written  a  host  of 
grammars,  did  not  derive  their  prosody  from  the  Caledonians,  who,  till  within 
these  thirty  years,  had  never  possessed  so  much  as  the  skeleton  of  a  national 
grammar."— Davies's  Claims  of  Ossian.  Dr.  Ferguson,  too,  in  his  communi- 
cation to  the  Highland  Society,  admits  that  there  were  "  no  books  in  the 
Gaelic  language  but  the  manuals  of  religion  ;  and  these  in  so  awkward  and 
clumsy  a  spelling,  that  few  could  read  them.'* 


130  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

produced  a  jealousy  which  sometimes  disturbed,  and,  even  at 
one  period,  endangered  this  small  colony*  the  advantage  de- 
rived by  both  nations  from  such  an  alliance  kept  their  fierce 
and  feverish  union  unbroken.  In  addition  to  the  pride  which 
Ireland  naturally  felt  in  the  task  of  watching  over  and  nursing 
into  vigour  that  germ  of  future  dominion  which  she  had  planted 
in  North  Britain,  her  kings  and  princes,  eternally  at  war  with 
each  other,  as  naturally  looked  beyond  their  own  shores  for 
allies;  and  accordingly,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  monarch 
Tuathal,  who  owed  his  throne  to  tlie  aid  of  Pictish  arms,  we 
find  the  alliance  of  that  people  frequently  resorted  to  as  a 
means  of  turning  the  scale  of  internal  strife.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  hardy  highlanders  of  Caledonia,  in  the  constant  war- 
fare they  waged  with  their  southern  neighbours,  were  no  less 
ready  to  resort  to  the  assistance  of  a  people  fully  as  restless 
and  pugnacious  as  themselves,  and  whose  manners  and  habits, 
from  a  long  course  of  connexion,  were,  it  is  probable,  but  little 
ciifTerent  from  their  own. 

As  some  defence  against  the  incursions  of  these  two  hostile 
tribes,  the  Romans  had,  at  different  intervals  during  the  second 
and  third  centuries,  erected  those  three  great  walls  or  ram- 
parts on  the  northern  frontier  of  their  province,  whose  remains 
still  continue  to  occupy  the  curious  research  and  speculation 
of  the  antiquary.  But  the  Iiostility  of  these  highlanders  had, 
at  the  period  of  which  we  are  now  treating,  assumed  a  still 
more  audacious  and  formidable  character ;  and,  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fourth  century,  so  destructive  had  become  their  in- 
roads, that  it  required  the  presence  of  the  son  of  Constantine, 
to  make  head  against  and  repel  them.  Whatever  differences 
their  relative  position,  as  rival  neighbours,  had  given  rise  to, 
were  entirely  merged  in  their  common  object  of  harassing  the 
Britons,  whom  a  native  historian  describes  as  trembling  with 

*  According  to  some  writers,  almost  the  whole  of  this  Irish  colony,  reduced 
to  extremity  by  the  constant  attacks  of  the  Picts,  were  compelled,  in  the 
middle,  it  is  said,  of  the  fifth  century,  (about  fifty  years  before  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Scotic  kingdom  in  North  Britain,)  to  abandon  their  possessions 
in  Argyleshire,  and  take  flight  to  Ireland,  where  they  found  a  refuge  in  the 
liereditary  territory  of  the  Dalriadic  princes.  Neither  in  Tigernach,  however, 
iior  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  does  there  occur  any  mention  of  such 
an  event,  which  seems  to  depend  wholly  ui»on  the  authority  of  the  Bcotish 
writers.  Major,  Boece,  Buchanan,  &c.,  whose  misrepresentation  of  most  of 
the  other  facts  connected  with  the  event,  renders  them  but  suspicious  testi- 
monies on  the  subject  of  the  Dalriadic  settlement.  Mr.  O'Connor,  however, 
has  adopted  the  same  unauthorized  view.  "  The  British  Dalriada,"  he 
states,  "  was  exercised  by  frequent  hostilities  from  the  Cruthneans,  and,  at 
one  period,  with  so  good  success,  that  they  forced  almost  the  whole  colony  to 
take  flight  into  Ireland,  under  their  leader,  Eochad  Munrevar,  who  found  a 
secure  retreat  for  his  followers  in  the  Irish  Dalriada."— X)isserl.  on  Hist,  of 
Scotland. 


HUAS    COLLA    USURPS   THE    THRONE.  131 

the  fear  of  a  new  visitation,  while  still  fainting  from  the  dire 
effects  of  the  tempest  which  had  just  swept  over  them. 

To  deliver  the  province  from  this  scourge,  one  of  the  bravest 
of  the  Roman  generals,  Theodosius,  was  now  appointed  to  the 
military  command  of  Britain ;  and  after  two  active  canipaigns, 
during  which  he  had  to  contend  not  only  with  the  Picts  and 
Scots  by  land,  but  also  with  their  new  allies,  the  Saxon  pirates, 
by  sea,  he  at  length  succeeded  in  delivering  Britain  from  her 
inveterate  invaders.  To  such  daring  lengths  had  some  of  these 
incursions  into  her  territory  extended,  that,  on  the  arrival  of 
the  Roman  general,  he  had  found  the  Picts  and  their  allies  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  London  and  Kent.*  In  all  this  warfare  the 
Scots  of  Ireland  were  no  less  active  than  their  brethren  of 
Albany ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  remarkable  that  the  Roman  com- 
mander, though  fitting  out  a  fleet  to  chastise  the  Saxons  in  the 
Orcades,  should  yet  have  left  Ireland,  whose  currachs  wafted 
over  such  hostile  swarms  to  his  shores,  still  exempt  from  inva- 
sion. That  his  fleet  chased,  however,  some  of  her  vessels  into 
their  own  northern  harbours,  may  be  concluded  from  a  passage 
of  the  poem  of  Claudian,  which  commemorates  this  war : — 

"  Noc  falso  nomine  Pictos 
Edomuit,  Scotumque  vago  mucrono  secutus, 
Fregit  Hyperboieas  remis  audacibusundas." 

The  few  following  lines  from  the  same  poem  describe  briefly 
and  picturesquely  the  signal  triumph  over  the  three  hostile 
nations  which  Theodosius  had  achieved : — 

"  Maduorunt  Saxone  fuso 
Orcados,  incaluit  Pictorum  sanguine  Thiilo, 
Scotorum  cumulos  (lovit  glacialis  lerne." 

From  this  period  there  occurs  nothing  very  remarkable  in  the 
course  of  Irish  affairs  till  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  when  the  violent  usurpation  of  the  sovereign  throne 
by  Huas  Colla,  one  of  three  brothers  bearing  the  same  name, 
produced  a  long  series  of  tumultuous  and  sanguinary  scenes. 
The  battle,  in  which  the  rightful  monarch,  Fiach,  lost  his 
crown  and  his  life  to  the  usurper,  is  distinguished  among  the 
countless  fields  of  carnage  upon  record,  by  the  title  of  the 
Battle  of  Dubcomar ;  from  the  circumstance  of  the  monarch's 
favourite  Druid  of  that  name  having  been  among  the  number 
of  the  slain.  This  and  other  such  known  instances  of  Druidi- 
cal  warriors,  show  that  justly  as  Macpherson  has,  in  general, 
been  accused  of  giving  false  pictures  of  Irish  manners,  his  in- 

*  See  Ammian.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  8.,  who  describes  tbem  as  penetrating  "ad 
Lundinium  vetus  oppidum,  quod  Augustam  posteritas  appellavit." 


132  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

troduction  of  "  Fighting  Druids"  is  not  to  be  reckoned  among 
the  number.*  The  name  of  Landerg,  or  Bloody  Hand,  affixed 
by  tradition,  as  we  are  told,  to  the  Druid  who  has  lived  en- 
chanted, it  is  thought,  for  ages,  in  one  of  the  mountains  of  the 
county  of  Donegal,  proves  the  sort  of  warlike  reputation  that 
was  attached  to  some  of  this  priesthood ;  and  we  learn  from 
Csesar,  that  even  so  solemn  a  question  as  the  election  of  a 
High  Priest  used,  among  the  Gaulish  Druids,  to  be  decided 
sometimes  by  an  appeal  to  arms. 

After  a  reign  of  five  years,  the  usurper  CoUa  was  compelled 
to  abdicate  the  sovereignty  by  the  rightful  successor  of  the 
late  monarch,  Muredach  Tiry,  and  the  three  Collas  took  flight, 
attended  by  300  followers,  to  North  Britain. f  From  thence 
returning  in  the  course  of  a  year,  they  found  means  to  concili- 
ate, through  the  intervention  of  the  Druids,  the  good-vvill  of 
the  monarch  Muredach,  and  were  also  by  his  aid  enabled  to 
make  war  on  the  king  of  Ulster,  and  dispossess  him  of  his  do- 
minions. It  was  in  the  course  of  the  struggle  consequent  on 
this  invasion,  that  the  princely  palace  of  Emania.  whose  con- 
struction formed  one  of  the  great  epochs  of  Irish  chronology, 
was,  after  a  battle,  upon  which,  we  are  told,  six  successive 
suns  went  down,  destroyed  by  the  victorious  army,  and  not  a 
trace  of  its  long-celebrated  glories  left  behind. 

An  invasion  of  Britain,  on  a  far  more  extensive  and 
396-7  ^o'^'^^^^^l®  scale  t]ian  had  yet  been  attempted  from 
*  Ireland,  took  place  towards  the  close  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, under  the  auspices  of  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  one  of 
the  most  gallant  of  all  the  princes  of  the  Milesian  race.  Ob- 
serving that  the  Romans,  after  breaking  up  their  lines  of  en- 
campment along  the  coast  opposite  to  Ireland,  had  retired  to 
the  eastern  shore  and  the  northern  wall,  Nial  perceived  that 
an  apt  opportunity  was  thus  oflfered  for  a  descent  upon  the  now 
unprotected  territory.  Instantly  summoning,  therefore,  all  the 
forces  of  the  island,  and  embarking  them  on  board  such  ships 
as  he  could  collect,  he  ranged  with  his  numerous  navy  along 
the  whole  coast  of  Lancashire,  effected  a  landmg  in  Wales, 
from  whence  he  carried  off  immense  plunder,  and,  though  com- 

*  O'Reilly's  Essay  upon  Ossian,  where  this  objection  is  brought  forward. 
"  From  the  very  name  of  Laniderg,"  says  Toland,  "  we  learn  what  sort  of 
man  the  Druid  was,  who,  by  the  vulvar,  is  thought  to  live  enchanted  in  the 
mountain  between  Buniranach  and  Fathen,  in  the  county  of  Donegal."  He 
adds,  that  the  Druids  were  many  of  them  warriors. 

t  A  poem  is  extant,  written  in  the  twelfth  century,  by  Giolla  na  Naomh 
O'Dunn,  giving  "  an  account  of  the  chief  tribes  descended  from  the  three 
Collas,  sons  of  Carbre  Leffeachar,  monarch  of  Ireland,  who  was  killed  at  the 
battle  of  Gabhra,  a.  d.  296."— T'ran^.  of  lb.  Celt.  Society.  A  manuscript  copy 
of  this  poem  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  O'Reilly,  the  Secretary  of  tlie  Iberuo. 
Celtic  Society. 


NIAL's    descent    upon    BRITAIN.  133 

pelled  ultimately  to  retreat,  left  marks  of  depredation  and  ruin 
wherever  he  passed.*  It  was  against  the  incursions  of  this 
adventurous  monarch,  that  some  of  those  successes  were 
achieved  by  the  Romans,  which  threw  such  lustre  around  the 
military  admiiiistration  of  Stilicho,  and  inspired  the  muse  of 
Claudian  in  his  praise.  "  By  h^in,"  says  the  poet,  speaking  in 
the  person  of  Britannia,  "  was  I  protected  when  the  Scot  moved 
all  Ireland  against  me,  and  the  ocean  foamed  with  his  hostile 
oars."f  From  another  of  this  poet's  eulogies,  it  appears  that 
the  fame  of  that  Roman  legion  which  had  guarded  the  frontier 
of  Britain  against  the  invading  Scots]:,  procured  for  it  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  one  of  those  summoned  to  the  banner  of 
Stilicho,  when  the  Goths  threatened  Rome.^ 

Joined  with  the  Picts  and  Scots,  in  these  expeditions,  were 
also  another  warlike  Irish  tribe,  the  Attacots ;  who,  at  an  ear- 
lier period  of  their  country's  history,  had  distinguished  them- 
selves by  their  turbulent  bravery ;  having  been  the  chief  movers 
of  those  two  rebellions  known  by  the  name  of  the  Attacottic 
Wars.  The  fierce  valour  of  these  wild  warriors,  who,  after 
their  settlement  in  North  Britain,  inhabited  chiefly  the  districts 
close  to  Adrian's  Wall,  seems  to  have  attracted  the  especial 
attention  of  the  Romans,  who,  acting  upon  the  policy,  which 
proved  so  fatal  to  them  in  the  decline  of  the  empire,  of  incor- 
porating with  their  own  legions,  and  even  with  the  Palatine 
troops,  auxiliaries  or  deserters  from  the  barbarian  camps,  suc- 
ceeded in  detaching  some  of  these  Attacotti  from  the  Scoto- 

*  "  In  the  days  of  Stilicho  particularly,  leaving  the  country  between  the 
Walls  to  be  ravaged  by  their  brethren  of  Argyle  and  the  Picts,  they  (the 
Scots  of  Ireland)  made  a  descent  on  the  provinces  that  were  inaccessible 
to  them,  landed  in  both  of  the  divisions  of  Wales,  and  now,  for  the  first 
time,  possessed  themselves  of  the  Island  of  Man."— Gcnmne  Hist,  of  the 
Britons. 

t  Totam  cum  Scotus  lernen 

Movit  et  infesto  spumavit  remige  Tethys. 

In' I.  Cons.  Siilich.  lib.  i. 
Thus  well  translated  in  the  English  Camden  : — 

When  Scots  came  thundering  from  the  Irish  shores, 
And  th'  ocean  trembled,  struck  with  hostile  oars. 
I  The  following  remarks  are  not  the  less  worthy  of  being  cited  for  their 
having  come  from  the  pen  of  a  writer  who  was  either  so  ignorant  or  so  pre- 
judiced as  to  contend,  that  the  Scots  who  fought  by  the  side  of  the  Picts 
against  the  Romans  were  not  really  Irish  :— "  There  can  be  no  greater  proof 
of  the  Scots   never  having  been  conquered,  than   the  very  Roman  walls 
themselves,  built  as  fences  against  their  hostilities  ;  which,  while  there  is  a 
stone  of  them  remaining,  will  be  undeniable  monuments  of  the  valour  and 
prowess  of  that  nation."— Corrfon,  Itinerarium  Scptentrionale,  chap.  xiv. 
§  Venit  et  extremis  Legio  prreteuta  Britannia. 
Quae  Scoto  dat  fraana  truci,  ferroque  notatas 
Perlegit  exanimes  Picto  moriente  figuras. 

De  Bella  Getico. 

Vol.  I.  12 


134  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Pictish  league,  and  enrolling  them  in  the  regular  force  of  tlie 
empire* 

The  tottering  state  of  the  Roman  dominion  in  Gaul,  as 
well  as  in  every  other  quarter,  at  this  period,  encouraged  the 
Hero  of  the  Nine  Hostages  to  extend  his  enterprises  to  the 
coast  of  Britany  ;  where,  after  ravaging  all  the  maritime  dis- 
tricts of  the  north-west  of  Gaul,  he  was  at  length  assassinated, 
with  a  poisoned  arrow,  by  one  of  his  own  followers,  near  the 
Portus  Iccius,  not  far,  it  is  supposed,  from  the  site  of  the  pre- 
sent Boulogne.  It  was  in  the  course  of  this  predatory  expedi- 
tion that,  in  one  of  their  descents  on  the  coast  of  Armoric  Gaul, 
the  soldiers  of  Nial  carried  off  with  them,  among  other  cap- 
tives, a  youth,  then  in  his  sixteenth  year,  whom  Providence 
had  destined  to  be  the  author  of  a  great  religious  revolution  in 
their  country ;  and  whom  the  strangely  fated  land  to  which  lie 
was  then  borne,  a  stranger  and  a  slave,  has  now,  for  fourteen 
hundred  years,  commemorated  as  its  great  Christian  apostle. 

An  accession  of  territory  was,  during  this  reign,  added  to 
the  Irish  possessions  in  North  Britain ;  the  two  sons  of  Cork, 
kuig  of  Munster,  having  acquired  seigniories  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  Picts,  the  one  of  Levinia,  or  Lenox ;  the  other,  of 
Moygergin,  in  Mar,  a  county  of  the  present  Scotland. 

To  Nial  the  Great  succeeded  Dathy,  the  last  of  the 
J'o?'  Pagan  monarchs  of  Ireland,  and  not  unworthy  to  follow, 
*  as  a  soldier  and  adventurer,  in  the  path  opened  to  him 
by  his  heroic  predecessor.  Not  only,  like  Nial,  did  he  venture 
to  invade  the  coasts  of  Gaul ;  but,  allured  by  the  prospect  of 
plunder,  which  the  state  of  the  province,  then  falling  fast  into 
dismemberment,  held  forth,  forced  his  way  to  the  foot  of  the 
Alps,  and  was  there  killed,  it  is  said,  by  a  flash  of  lightning, 
leaving  the  throne  of  Ireland  to  be  filled  thenceforward  by  a 
line  of  Christian  kings. 

*  In  the  Jfotitia  Imperii,  the  Attacotti  are  expressly  named.  "  Procedente 
tempore  cum  bellicosos  et  formidandos  Romani  invenissent,  priemiis  propo- 
eitis  et  sese  auxiliariis  adscriberent  allexerunt,  ideoque  Attacottos  in  No- 
titia  Imperii  nominates  invenimus,  curante  Honorio,  ut  ex  inimicis  amici 
et  vacillanlis  Imperii  defensores  ha berentur. "—iZcr.  Hibern.  Script.,  Prol.  1. 
Ixxi. 

"  The  Attacotti  make  a  distinguished  figure  in  the  Notitia  Imperii,  where 
numerous  bodies  of  them  appear  in  the  list  of  the  Roman  army.  One  body 
was  in  Ijlyricum,  their  ensign  a  kind  of  mullet ;  another  at  Rome,  their 
badge  a  circle  ;  the  Attacotti  Honoriani  were  in  Italy." — Pinkerton,  Enquiry, 
part  iv.  chap.  2. 


THE    BARDIC    HISTORIANS.  135 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CREDIBILITY  OF  THE  HISTORY   OF  PAGAN  IRELAND. 

Before  entering  upon  the  new  epoch  of  Irish  history,  which 
is  about  to  open  upon  us  with  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
a  review  of  the  general  features  of  the  period  over  which  we 
have  passed  may  be  found  not  uninteresting  or  unuseful.  With 
regard  to  the  first  and  most  material  question,  the  authenticity 
of  those  records  on  which  the  foregoing  brief  sketch  of  Pagan 
Ireland  is  founded,  it  is  essential,  in  the  first  place,  to  distin- 
guish clearly  between  what  are  called  the  Bardic  Historians, — 
certain  metrical  writers,  who  flourished  from  the  ninth  to  the 
eleventh  century, — and  those  regular  chroniclers  or  annalists 
of  whom  a  long  series  was  continued  down,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe,  from  very  early  ages,  and  whose  successive 
records  have  been  embodied  and  transmitted  to  us  in  the  An- 
nals of  Tigernach*,  in  those  of  the  Four  Mastersf ,  of  Inisfal- 
len,  of  Ulster|,  and  many  others,  § 

To  the  metrical  historians  above  mentioned  is  to  be  attributed 
the  credit,  if  not  of  originally  inventing,  at  least  of  amplifying 
and  embellishing,  that  tale  of  the  Milesian  colonization  which 
so  many  grave  and  respectable  writers  have,  since  their  time, 
adopted.  In  his  zeal  for  the  credit  of  this  national  legend,  the 
late  learned  librarian  of  Stowe  has  endeavoured  to  enlist  some 
of  the  more  early  Irish  poets  in  its  support.  ||     On  his  own 

*  In  the  Annals  of  tiie  Four  Masters  for  the  year  1088,  the  death  of  this 
annalist  is  thus  recorded:— "  Tic^ernach  O'Braoin,  Comorban,  or  Successor 
of  Kieran  of  Clonmacnois  and  of  St.  Coman  (i.  e.  Abbot  of  Clonmacnois  and 
Roscommon),  a  learned  lecturer  and  historian." 

t  Compiled  in  the  seventeenth  century,  by  Michael  O'Clery,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  three  other  antiquaries,  and  "  chiefly  drawn,"  says  Harris,  "  from 
the  annals  of  Clonmacnois,  Inisfall,  and  Senat,  as  well  as  from  other  ap- 
proved and  ancient  chronicles  of  Ireland."  For  a  fuller  account  of  the 
various  sources  from  whence  these  records  were  derived,  see  Mr.  Petrie's 
Remarks  on  the  History  and  Authenticity  of  the  Autograph  Original  of  the 
Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  now  deposited  in  the  library  of  the  R.  I.  A. 
Academy. 

X  Published,  for  the  first  time,  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  from  a  Bodleian  manuscript 
of  the  year  1215. 

§  A  long  list  of  these  various  books  of  Annals  may  be  found  in  Nichol- 
son's Historical  Library,  chap.  2. ;  also  in  the  preface  to  Keating's  History, 
xxi. 

II  For  the  very  slight  grounds,  or,  rather,  mere  pretence  of  grounds,  upon 
which  Dr.  O'Connor  lays  claim  to  Fiech  and  Confealad,  Irish  poets  of  the 
sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  as  authorities  for  the  Milesian  story,  see,  among 
other  passages,  Ep.  Nunc,  xxxiv.,  Prol.  2.  xv.  xxvi.  Having  once  claimed 
them,  thus  gratuitously,  as  favouring  lus  views  of  the  subject,  he  continues 
constantly  after  to  refer  to  them,  as  concurrent  authorities  with  those  later 


136  HISTORY    OF  IRELAr*D. 

showing,  however,  it  is  manifest  that  in  no  Irish  writings  before 
those  of  Maolmura,*  who  died  towards  the  close  of  the  ninth 
century,  are  any  traces  whatever  of  the  Milesian  fable  to  be 
found. 

There  appears  little  doubt,  indeed,  that  to  some  metrical 
writers  of  the  ninth  century  the  first  rudiments  of  this  wild 
romance  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Irish  people  are  to  be 
assigned ;  that  succeeding  writers  took  care  to  amplify  and 
embellish  the  original  sketch ;  and  that  in  the  hands  of  the 
author  or  authors  of  the  Psalter  of  Cashelf ,  it  assumed  that 
full-blown  form  of  fiction  and  extravagance  in  which  it  has 
ever  since  flourished.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  the 
same  British  writer,  Nennius,  who  furnished  Geoffry  of  Mon- 
mouth with  his  now  exploded  fables  of  the  descent  of  the  Bri- 
tons from  king  Brute  and  the  Trojans,  was  the  first  also  who 
put  forth  the  tale  of  the  Scythian  ancestors  of  the  Irish,  and 
of  their  coming,  in  the  fourth  age  of  the  world,  by  the  way  of 
Africa  and  Spain,  into  Hibernia.  Having  conversed,  as  he 
himself  tells  us,  with  the  most  learned  among  the  Scots|,  and 
been  by  them,  it  is  evident,  informed  of  their  early  traditions 
respecting  a  colony  from  Spain,  he  was  tempted  to  eke  out 
their  genealogy  for  them  by  extending  it  as  far  as  Scythia  and 

bardic  historians,  in  whom  alone  the  true  origin  and  substance  of  the  whole 
story  is  to  be  found. 

The  Psalter-na-Rann  attributed  to  the  Culdee,  iEngus,  which  is  another 
of  the  writings  appealed  to  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  on  this  point,  wan,  however, 
uot  the  work  of  that  pious  author  (who  wrote  solely  on  religious  subjects), 
nor  of  a  date  earlier,  as  is  evident,  than  the  tenth  century.  Sec  Lanigan, 
Ecclesiast.  Hist.,  chap.  xx.  note  107. 

♦This  writer,  who  died  in  the  year  684,  was  the  author  of  a  poem  begin- 
ning, "Let  us  sing  the  orijrin  of  the  Gadelians:"  in  which,  deriving  the 
origin  of  the  Milesians  from  Japhet,  son  of  Noah,  he  gives  an  account  of  the 
peregrinations  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Irish  from  the  dispersion  at  Babel  to 
the  arrival  in  Ireland.  Contemporary  with  Maolmura  was  Flann  Mac  Lo- 
nan,  of  whose  compositions  there  remain,  says  Mr.  O'Reilly,  three  poems, 
which  "  are  to  be  found  in  the  account  of  the  spreading  branches  of  Heber, 
son  of  Milesius,  in  the  Leabhar  Muimhneach,  or  Munster  Book." 

jFrom  this  work,  which  was  compiled,  about  the  beginning  of  the  tenth 
century,  by  Corraac  Mac  Culinan,  bishop  of  Cashel  and  king  of  Munster, 
Keating  professes  to  have  drawn  a  great  part  of  his  History  of  Ireland. 
"  Since  most,"  says  Keating,  "  of  the  authentic  records  of  Ireland  are  com- 
posed in  dann,  or  verse,  I  shall  receive  them  as  the  principal  testimonies  to 
follow  in  compiling  the  following  history;  for,  notwithstanding  that  some 
of  the  chronicles  of  Ireland  differ  from  these  poetical  records  in  some  cases, 
yet  the  testimony  of  the  annals  that  were  written  in  verse  is  not  for  that 
reason  invalid."— Pre/ace.  About  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century  flourished 
Eochaidh  O'Floinn,  whose  poems,  relating  to  the  marvels  of  the  first  Irish 
colonies,  the  battles  between  the  Nemethians  and  the  sea  rovers,  the  de- 
struction of  Conan's  Tower,  are  still  preserved  in  the  books  of  Glendalough, 
Ballymote,  and  Leacan,  the  Dinn  Seanchas,  Book  of  Invasions,  &c. 

X  "  Sic  mihi  peritissimi  Scottorum  nuntiaverunt."  Nennius  wrote  about 
the  year  858. 


FICTITIOUS    ROYAL    GENEALOGIES.  137 

the  Red  Sea,  just  as  he  had  provided  the  Britons  with  Trojan 
progenitors,  under  the  command  of  king  Brute,  from  Greece. 

To  our  metrical  historians  may  be  assigned  also  the  credit 
of  inventing  that  specious  system  of  chronology  upon  which 
the  fabric  of  their  fabled  antiquity  entirely  rests,  and  which, 
though  well  calcukited  to  effect  the  object  of  its  inventors, — 
that  of  carrying  back  to  remote  times  the  date  of  the  Milesian 
dynasty, — proves  them  not  to  have  been  over-scrupulous  in  the 
means  they  used  for  that  purpose.*  It  is,  indeed,  as  I  have 
already,  more  than  once,  remarked,  far  less  in  the  events  them- 
selves, than  in  the  remote  date  assigned  to  those  events,  that 
much  of  the  delusion  attributed  in  general  to  Irish  history  lies. 
The  ambition  of  a  name  ancient  as  the  world,  and  the  lax,  ac- 
commodating chronology,  which  is  found  ever  ready,  in  the 
infancy  of  science,  to  support  such  pretensions,  has  led  the  Irish, 
as  it  has  led  most  other  nations,  to  antedate  their  own  existence 
and  fame.f 

Together  with  the  primitive  mode  of  numbering  ages  and 
ascertaining  the  dates  of  public  events,  by  the  successions  of 
kings  and  the  generations  of  men,  the  ancient  Irish  possessed 
also  a  measure  of  time  in  their  two  great  annual  festivals  of 
Baal  and  of  Samhin,  the  recurrence  of  which  at  certain  fixed 
periods  furnished  points,  in  each  year,  from  whence  to  calcu- 
late. How  far  even  History  may  advance  to  perfection  where 
no  more  regular  chronology  exists,  appears  in  the  instance  of 
Thucydides,  who  was  able  to  enrich  the  world  with  his  "  trea- 
sure for  all  time"  before  any  era  from  whence  to  date  had  yet 
been   established  in  Greece.     It  was,  however,  in  this  very 

*  The  extravagant  chronology  of  the  metrical  catalogues  of  kings  given 
by  Gilla-Coeman,  and  other  later  bards,  is  fully  acknowledged  by  Dr  O'Con- 
nor himself: — "  IliEC  plane  indicant  nostras,  de  Scotorum  origine,  et  primo 
in  Hiberniam  ac  inde  in  Britanniani  adventu,  traditiones  metricas  historica 
esse  fide  auftUltas ;  sed  dum  bardi  prodigiosam  antiquitatem  majoribus  ad- 
scribere  conarentur  id  tantum  fingendi  licentia  efficere  ut  quas  illustrare  de- 
buerant  veritates  offuscarent,  ct  dum  Hiberniam  fabulis  nobilitare  cupiunt 
ipsi  sibi  fidem  ita  derogant  ut  postea,  cum  ad  tempora  historica  descendunt, 
etsi  vera  dixerint,  nimia  severitate  redarguantur." — Prol.  2.  xlvi. 

It  was  by  Coeman,  notwithstanding,  that  the  author  of  Ogygia  chiefly 
regulated  his  chronology  ;  and  the  erudite  efforts  which  he  makes  to  recon- 
cile his  system  to  common  sense  show  how  laboriously,  sometimes,  the 
learned  can  go  astray.  "  It  is  no  wonder,"  says  Mr.  O'Connor  of  Balenagare, 
"  that  Gilla-Coeman,  and  many  other  of  our  old  antiquaries,  have  fallen  into 
mistakes  and  anachronisms :  to  their  earliest  reports  Mr.  O'Flaherty  gave 
too  much  credit,  and  to  their  later  accounts  Sir  James  Ware  gave  too  little." 
—Reflections  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland,  Collectan.  No.  10. 

t "  The  Danes,"  saith  Dudo  S.  Q,uintin,  "  derived  themselves  from  the 
Danai ;  the  Prussians  from  Prusias,  king  of  Bithynia,  who  brought  the 
Greeks  along  with  them.  Only  the  Scots  and  Irish  had  the  wit  to  derive 
themselves  from  the  Greeks  and  Egyptians  together."— jJntiy.  of  British 
Churches. 

12* 


138  HISTORY   OF   IRELAND. 

mode  of  computing  by  regal  successions  that  the  great  source 
of  the  false  chronology  of  the  Irish  antiquaries  lay.  From  the 
earliest  times,  the  government  of  that  country  consisted  of  a 
cluster  of  kingdoms,  where,  besides  the  Monarch  of  the  whole 
island  and  the  four  provincial  Kings,  there  was  also  a  number 
of  inferior  sovereigns,  or  Dynasts,  who  each  aftected  the  regal 
name  and  power.  Such  a  state  of  things  it  was  that  both 
tempted  and  enabled  the  genealogists  to  construct  that  fabric 
of  fictitious  antiquity  by  which  they  imposed  not  only  on  others, 
but  on  themselves.  Having  such  an  abundance  of  royal  blood 
thus  placed  at  their  disposal,  the  means  afforded  to  them  of 
filling  up  the  genaological  lines,  and  thereby  extending  back 
the  antiquity  of  the  monarchy,  were  far  too  tempting  to  be  easily 
resisted.  Accordingly, — as  some  of  those  most  sangume  in 
the  cause  of  our  antiquities  have  admitted, — not  only  were 
kings  who  had  been  contemporaries  made  to  succeed  each 
other,  but  even  princes,  acknowledged  only  by  their  respective 
factions,  were  promoted  to  the"  rank  of  legitimate  monarchs, 
and  took  their  places  in  the  same  regular  succession.*  By  no 
other  expedient,  indeed,  could  so  marvellous  a  list  of  Royalty 
have  been  fabricated,  as  that  which  bestows  upon  Ireland,  be- 
fore the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  no  less  than  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  monarchs  of  Milesian  blood ;  thereby  extending  the  date 
of  the  Milesian  or  Scotic  settlement  to  so  remote  a  period  as 
more  than  a  thousand  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ. 

Between  the  metrical  historians,  or  rather  romancers,  of  the 
middle  ages,  and  those  regular  annalists  who,  at  the  same  and 
a  later  period,  but  added  their  own  stock  of  contemporary  re- 
cords to  that  consecutive  series  of  annals  which  had  been  de- 
livered down,  in  all  probability,  for  many  ages, — between  these 
two  sources  of  evidence,  a  wide  distinction,  as  I  have  already 
inculcated,  is  to  be  drawn.f     It  is  true  that,  in  some  of  the 

*  A  nearly  similar  mode  of  lengthening  out  their  regal  lists  was  practised 
among  the  Egyptians.  "  Their  kings,"  says  Bryant,  "  had  many  names  and 
titles  ;  these  titles  have  been  branciied  out  into  persons,  and  inserted  in  the 
lists  of  real  monarchs  ;  ....  by  which  means  the  chronology  of  Egypt  has 
been  greatly  embarrassed." 

t  Till  of  late  years  they  have  been,  by  most  writers,  both  English  and  Irish, 
confounded.  Thus  the  sensible  author  of  "  An  Analysis  of  the  Antiquities 
of  Ireland,"  who,  though  taking  a  just  and  candid  view  of  his  subject,  had 
no  means  of  access  to  the  documents  which  alone  could  strengthen  and  illus- 
trate it,  has,  in  the  following  passage,  mixed  up  together,  as  of  equal  im- 
portance, our  most  fabulous  compilations  and  most  authentic  annals; — 
"  Let  us  have  faithful  copies,  with  just  versions,  of  the  hidden  records  of 
Keating,  of  the  Psalter  of  Casliel,  of  the  Book  of  Lecan,  of  the  Annals  of 
Inisfallen,  of  those  of  the  Four  Masters,  and  of  every  other  work  which  may 
be  judged  to  be  of  importance.  The  requisition  is  simple  as  it  is  reasonable. 
They  have  long  amused  us  with  declamations  on  the  inestimable  value  of 


TIGEENACIl's    AKNAL3.  139 

collections  of  Annals  that  have  come  down  to  us,  the  fabulous 
wonders  of  the  first  four  ages  of  the  world,  from  Csesara  down 
to  the  landing  of  the  sons  of  Milesius,  have  been,  in  all  their 
absurdity,  preserved,— as  they  are,  indeed,  in  most  histories  of 
the  country  down  to  the  present  day.  It  is  likewise  true,  that 
by  most  of  the  annalists  the  same  deceptive  scheme  of  chro- 
nology has  been  adopted,  by  v/hich  the  lists  of  the  kings  pr€= 
ceding  the  Christian  era  are  lengthened  out  so  preposterously 
into  past  time.  But,  admitting  to  the  full  all  such  deduc= 
tions  from  the  authority  of  these  records,  more  especially  as 
regards  their  chronology  for  the  times  preceding  our  era,  still 
their  pretensions,  on  the  whole,  to  rank  as  fair  historical  evi- 
dence, can  hardly,  on  any  just  grounds,  be  questioned. 

From  the  objections  that  have  just  been  alleged  against 
most  of  the  other  Books  of  Annals,  that  of  Tigernach  is  al- 
most wholly  free ;  as,  so  far  from  placing  in  the  van  of  history 
the  popular  fictions  of  his  day,  this  chronicler  has  passed  them 
over  significantly  in  silence ;  and  beginning  his  Annals  with  a 
comparatively  late  monarch,  Kimboath,  pronounces  the  records 
of  the  Scots,  previously  to  that  period,  to  have  been  all  uncer- 
tain.* The  feeling  of  confidence  which  so  honest  a  commence- 
ment inspires,  is  fully  justified  by  the  tone  of  veracity  which 
pervades  the  whole  of  his  statements ;  and,  according  as  he 
approaches  the  Cliristian  era,  and,  still  more,  as  he  advances 
into  that  period,  the  remarkable  consistency  of  his  chronology, 
his  knowledge  and  accuracy  in  synchronizing  Irish  events 
with  those  of  the  Roman  History,  and  the  uniformly  dry  mat- 
ter of  fact  which  forms  the  staple  of  his  details,  alj  bespeak 
for  these  records  a  confidence  of  no  ordinary  kind;  and  render 
them,  corroborated  as  they  are  by  other  Annals  of  the  same 
grave  description,  a  body  of  evidence,  even  as  to  the  earlier 
parts  of  Irish  history,  far  more  trustworthy  and  chronological 
than  can  be  adduced  for  some  of  the  most  accredited  transac- 
tions of  that  early  period  of  Grecian  story,  when,  as  we  know, 
the  accounts  of  great  events  were  kept  by  memory  alone.f 

these  literary  treasures  ;  and  surely,  after  having  excited  our  curiosity,  their 
conduct  will  be  inexcusable,  if  they  do  not  in  tlie  end  provide  for  its  grati- 
fication." 

*  Doctor  O'Connor,  it  is  right  to  mention,  is  of  opinion  that  Tigernach  had, 
like  all  the  other  annalists,  begun  his  records  from  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  that  the  commencement  of  his  manuscript  has  been  lost.  But,  besides 
that  the  view  taken  by  the  annalist  as  to  the  uncertainty  of  all  earlier  mo- 
numents, sufficiently  accounts  for  his  not  ascending  any  higher,  all  the  dif- 
ferent manuscripts,  it  appears,  of  his  Annals  agree  in  not  carrying  the  records 
farther  back  than  a.  c.  305. 

t  "  It  is  strongly  implied  by  his  (Pausanias's)  expressions,  that  the  written 
register  of  the  Olympian  victors  was  not  so  old  as  Chorcebus,  but  that  the 


140  HISTORY    OF    IEELA2SD. 

A  learned  writer,  who,  by  the  force  of  evidence,  has  been 
constrained  to  admit  the  antiquity  of  the  lists  of  Irish  kings, 
has  yet  the  inconsistency  to  deny  to  this  people  the  use  of  let- 
ters before  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.  It  is  to  be  recollected 
that  the  regal  lists  which  he  thus  supposes  to  have  been  but 
orally  transmitted,  and  which,  from  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era,  are  shown  to  have  been  correctly  kept,  consist 
of  a  long  succession  of  princes,  in  genealogical  order,  with, 
moreover,  the  descent  even  of  the  collateral  branches  in  all 
their  difterent  ramifications.^'-  Such  is  the  nature  of  the  royal 
lists  which,  according  to  tliis  sapient  supposition,  must  have 
been  transmitted  correctly,  from  memory  to  memory,  through 
a  lapse  of  many  centuries ;  and  such  the  weakness  of  that  sort 
of  scepticism, — not  unmixed  sometimes  with  a  li^rking  spirit 
of  unfairness, — which,  while  straining  at  imaginary  difficulties 
on  one  side  of  a  question,  is  prepared  to  swallow  the  most  in- 
digestible absurdities  on  the  other.  And  here  a  consideration 
on  the  general  subject  of  Irish  antiquities  presents  itself,  which, 
as  it  has  had  great  weight  in  determining  my  own  views  of 
the  matter,  may,  perhaps,  not  be  without  some  influence  on  the 
mmd  of  ray  reader.  In  the  course  of  this  chapter  shall  be  laid 
before  him  a  view  of  the  state  in  which  Ireland  was  found  in 

account  of  the  first  Olympiads  liad  hcen  kept  by  iiieuiory  alone.  Indeed,  it 
appears  certain  from  all  memorials  of  the  best  authority,  that  writing  was 
not  conunon  in  Greece  so  early."— JJfi//o;t/,  vol.  i.  chap.  3. 

"  When  we  consider  tliat  this  was  the  first  attempt  (the  Olympionics  of 
Tiniffiiis  of  Sicily)  that  we  know  of,  to  establisli  an  era,  and  that  it  was  in 
the  129th  Olympiad,  what  arc  we  to  think  of  the  preceding  Greek  chro- 
nology ?"—Jfoorf'a'  Etirjuirt/  into  the  Life,  S^'C,  of  Homer. 

*  "  In  Ireland,  the  genealogies  which  are  i)resorved,  could  not  have  been 
handed  down  in  such  an  extensive,  and  at  the  same  time  so  correct  a  manner, 
without  this  acquaintance  witli  letters,  as  the  tables  embrace  too  great  a 
compass  to  retain  them  in  the  memory;  and  as,  without  the  assistance  of 
these  elements  of  knowledge,  there  would  have  been  no  sufficient  inducement 
to  bestow  on  them  such  peculiar  iillQWiion:''— Webb,  Analysis  of  the  Jintiq. 
of  Ireland.  Another  well-informed  writer  thus  enforces  the  same  view: — 
'*  The  Irish  genealogical  tables,  which  are  still  e.\tant,  carry  intrinsic  proofs 
of  their  being  geimine  and  authentic,  by  their  chronological  accurary  and 
consistency  with  each  other  through  all  the  lines  collateral,  as  well  as  direct ; 
a  consistency  not  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  their  being  fabri- 
cated in  a  subsequent  age  of  darkness  and  ignorance,  but  easily  explained  if 
we  admit  them  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  real  source  of  family  records 
and  truth.''— Enquiry  concerning  the  original  of  the  Scots  iji  Britain,  by  Bar- 
nard, Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

"  Foreigners  may  imagine  that  it  is  granting  too  much  to  the  Irish  to  allow 
them  lists  of  kings  more  ancient  tlian  those  of  any  other  country  in  modern 
Europe;  but  the  singularly  compact  and  remote  situation  of  that  island,  and 
its  freedom  from  Roman  coiuiuest,  and  from  the  concussions  of  the  fall  of 
the  Roman  empire,  may  infer  this  allowance  not  too  much.  But  all  contended 
for  is  the  list  of  kings  so  easily  preserved  by  the  repetition  of  bards  at  high  so- 
lemnities,  and  some  grand  events  of  history."-- Pi/jAerion,  Enquiry  into  the 
Hist,  of  Scotland,  part  iv.  chap,  i. 


ANTiaUITY  OF    THE    IRISH    INSTITUTIONS.  141 

the  fifth  century, — of  the  condition  of  her  people,  their  forms 
of  polity,  institutions,  and  usages  at  that  period  when  the 
Christian  faith  first  visited  her  shores;  and  when,  by  the  light 
which  then  broke  in  upon  her  long  seclusion,  she  became,  for 
the  first  time,  in  any  degree  known  to  the  other  nations  of 
Europe.  In  that  very  state,  political  and  social,  in  which  her 
people  were  then  found,  with  the  very  same  laws,  forms  of  go- 
vernment, manners  and  habits,  did  they  remain,  without  change 
or  innovation,  for  the  space  of  seven  hundred  years ;  and 
though,  at  the  end  of  that  long  period,  brought  abjectly  under 
a  foreign  yoke,  yet  continued  unsubdued  in  their  attachment 
to  the  old  law  of  their  country,  nor  would  allow  it  to  be  super- 
seded by  the  code  of  the  conqueror  for  nearly  five  hundred 
years  after. 

It  is  evident  that  to  hifuse  into  any  order  of  things  so  per- 
vading a  principle  of  stability,  must  have  been  the  slow  work 
of  time  alone ;  nor  could  any  system  of  laws  and  usages  have 
taken  so  strong  a  hold  of  the  hearts  of  a  whole  people  as  those 
of  the  Irish  had  evidently  obtained  at  the  time  of  the  coming 
of  St.  Patrick,  without  the  lapse  of  many  a  foregone  century 
to  enable  them  to  strike  so  deeply  their  roots.  In  no  country, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  Cliristianity  received  with  so  fervid  a  v/el- 
come ;  but  in  none  also  had  she  to  make  such  concessions  to 
old  established  superstitions,  or  to  leave  so  much  of  those  reli- 
gious forms  and  prejudices,  which  she  found  already  subsisting, 
unaltered.  Nor  was  it  only  over  the  original  Irish  themselves 
that  these  prescriptive  laws  had  thus  by  long  tenure  gained  an 
ascendency ;  as  even  those  foreign  tribes, — for  the  most  part, 
as  we  have  seen,  Teutonic, — who  obtained  a  settlement  among 
them,  had  been  forced,  though  conquerors,  to  follow  in  the  cur- 
rent of  long-established  customs*;  till,  as  was  said  of  the  con- 
quering colonists  of  an  after  day,  they  grew,  at  length,  to  be 
more  Hibernian  than  the  Hibernians  themselves.  The  same 
ancient  forms  of  religion  and  of  government  were  still  pre- 
served ;  the  language  of  the  multitude  soon  swept  away  that 
of  the  mere  caste  who  ruled  them,  and  their  entire  exemption 
from  Roman  dominion  left  them  safe  from  even  a  chance  of 
change.f 

*  The  consequences  of  this  "  Oriental  inflexibility,"— as  Niebhur  expresses 
it,  in  speaking:  of  the  Syrians,— are  thus  described  by  Camden  :— "  The  Irish 
are  so  wedded  to  their  own  customs,  that  they  not  "only  retain  them  them- 
selves, but  corrupt  the  English  that  come  among  them." 

t  It  has  been  falsely  asserted  by  some  writers,  that  the  Romans  visited,  and 
even  conquered,  Ireland.  The  old  chronicler  Wyntown,  carries  them  to  that 
country  even  so  early  as  the  first  century ;  and  Gueudeville,  the  wretched 
compiler  of  the  Atla.s  Historique,  has,  in  his  map  of  Ireland,  represented  the 


142  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

How  far  the  stern  grasp  of  Roman  authority  might  have 
succeeded  in  effacing  from  the  minds  of  the  Irish  their  old 
habits  and  predilections,  it  is  needless  now  to  inquire.  But 
had  we  no  other  proof  of  the  venerable  antiquity  of  their  na- 
tion, this  fond  fidelity  to  the  past,  this  retrospective  spirit, 
which  is  sure  to  be  nourished  in  the  minds  of  a  people  by  long- 
hallowed  institutions,  would,  in  the  absence  of  all  other  means 
of  proof,  be  fully  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  When,  in  addi- 
tion to  this  evidence  impressed  upon  the  very  character  of  her 
people,  we  find  Ireland  furnished  also  with  all  that  marks  an 
ancient  nation, — unnumbered  monuments  of  otlier  days  and 
belonging'  to  unknown  creeds, — a  language  the  oldest  of  all 
European  tongues  still  spoken  by  her  people,  and  Annals  writ- 
ten in  that  language  of  earlier  date  than  those  of  any  other 
northern  nation  of  Europe*,  tracing  the  line  of  her  ancient 
kings,  in  chronological  order,  up  as  far  at  least  as  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Christian  era, — when  we  find  such  a  com- 
bination of  circumstances,  all  bearing  in  the  same  direction, 
all  confirming  the  impression  derived  from  the  historical  cha- 
racter of  the  people, — it  is  surely  an  abuse  of  the  right  of 
doubting,  to  reject  lightly  such  an  amount  of  evidence,  or  resist 
the  obvious  conclusion  to  which  it  all  naturally  leads. 

Among  the  most  solemn  of  tlic  customs  observed  in  Ireland, 
during  the  times  of  paganism,  was  that  of  keeping,  in  each  of 
the  provinces,  as  well  as  at  the  seat  of  the  monarchical  go- 
vernment, a  public  Psalter,  or  register,  in  which  all  passing 
transactions  of  any  interest  were  noted  down.  This,  like  all 
their  other  ancient  observances,  continued  to  be  retained  after 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  ;  and  to  the  great  monasteries, 
all  over  the  country,  fell  the  task  of  watching  over  and  conti- 
nuing these  records.f  That,  in  their  zeal  for  religion,  they 
should  liave  destroyed  most  of  those  documents  which  referred 
to  the  dark  rites  and  superstitions  of  heathenism,  appears  highly 
credible.!     But  such  records  as  related  chiefly  to  past  political 


country  as  reduced  within  tlie  circle  of  the  Roman  sway.  The  pretended 
monk  Richard,  also,  who,  tlianks  to  th(>  credulity  of  historians,  was  j)ermittcd 
to  establish  a  new  Roman  province,  Vcspasiana,  to  the  north  of  Antonine's 
Wall,  has,  in  like  manner,  made  a  present  to  Constantino  the  Great  of  the 
tributary  submission  of  Ireland.  "A.  M.  4307,  Constantiniis,  qui  Magnus 
postea  dicitur  .  .  .  cui  se  sponte  tributariam  oftert  Hibernia." 

*  "CiEterarum  enim  jjentium  Septcntrionalium  antiqiiitatesscriptas  longe 
recentiores  esse  existinio,  si  cum  Hibernicis  comparentur."— Dr.  O'Connor, 
£p.  Jfunc.  xix. 

t  "  Alibi  indicavi  celebriora  Hibernise  monasteria  amanviensem  aluissc, 
Scribhinn  appellatum."— iier.  Hib.  Script.  Ep.  Jfmic. 

I  "  Of  the  works  of  the  Druids,  as  we  are  informed  from  the  Lecan  Records, 
by  the  learned  Donald  Mac  Firbiss,  no  fewer  than  180  tracts  were  committed 


RECORD  OP  AN  ECLIPSE  IN  THE  IRISH  ANNALS.     143 

events  were  not  obnoxious  to  the  same  hostile  feeling;  and 
these  the  monks  not  only,  in  most  instances,  preserved,  but 
carried  on  a  continuation  of  them,  from  age  to  age,  in  much 
the  same  tone  of  veracious  dryness  as  characterizes  that  simi- 
lar series  of  records,  the  Saxon  Chronicle.  In  like  manner, 
too,  as  the  English  annalists  are  known,  in  most  instances,  to 
have  founded  their  narrations  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon  documents 
derived  from  their  ancestors,  so  each  succeeding  Irish  chroni- 
cler transmitted  the  records  which  he  found  existing,  along 
with  his  own ;  thus  giving  to  the  whole  series,  as  has  been 
well  said  of  tlie  Saxon  Chronicle,  the  force  of  contemporary 
evidence.* 

The  precision  with  which  tlie  Irish  annalists  have  recorded, 
to  the  month,  day,  and  hour,  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  which  took 
place  in  the  year  664,  affords  both  an  instance  of  the  exceed- 
ing accuracy  with  whicli  they  observed  and  noted  passing 
events,  and  also  an  undeniable  proof  that  the  annals  for  that 
year,  though  long  since  lost,  must  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  have  transmitted  to  us  that  remarkable  record.  In 
calculating  the  period  of  the  same  eclipse,  the  Venerable  Bedef 
— led  astray,  it  is  plain,  by  his  ignorance  of  that  yet  undetect- 
ed error  of  the  Dionysian  cycle,  by  which  the  equation  of  the 
motions  of  the  sun  and  moon  was  affected, — exceeded  the  true 
time  of  the  event  by  several  days.  Whereas  the  Irish  chroni- 
cler, wholly  ignorant  of  the  rules  of  astronomy,  and  merely  re- 
cording what  he  had  seen  passing  before  his  eyes, — namely,  that 
the  eclipse  occurred,  about  the  tenth  hour,  on  the  3d  of  May, 
in  the  year  664, — has  transmitted  a  date  to  posterity,  of  which 
succeeding  astronomers  have  acknowledged  the  accuracy. 

It  may  be  said,  that  this  observation  was  supplied  and  inter- 
polated by  some  later  hand ;  but  this  would  only  rescue  us 
from  one  difficulty  to  involve  us  as  deeply  in  another ;  as  it  must, 
in  that  case,  be  admitted  that  among  the  Irish  of  the  middle 
ages  were  to  be  found  astronomers  sufficiently  learned  to  be 
able  to  anticipate  that  advanced  state  of  knowledge  which  led 

to  the  flames  at  the  instance  of  St.  Patrick.  Such  an  example  set  the  con- 
verted Christians  to  work  in  all  parts,  till,  in  the  end,  all  the  remains  of  the 
Druidic  superstition  were  utterly  destroyed. "—Z)issert.  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland. 

*  "  The  annals  of  these  writers  are,  perhaps,  but  Latin  translations  of 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicles  ....  at  least,  the  existence  of  similar  passages, 
yet  in  Anglo-Saxon,  is  one  of  the  best  proofs  we  can  obtain  of  this  curious 
fact,  that  the  Latin  narrations  of  all  our  chroniclers,  of  the  events  preceding 
the  Conquest,  are  in  general  translations  or  abridgments  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  documents  of  our  ancestors.  This  fact  is  curious,  because,  wherever 
it  obtains,  it  gives  to  the  whole  series  of  our  annals  the  force  of  contemporary 
evidence."— Turner,  Hist,  of  Anglo-Saxons,  book  vi.  chap.  7. 

t  Hist.  Ecclesiast.  lib.  iii.  can.  27. 


144  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

to  the  coiTection  of  the  Dionysian  period,  and  to  ascertain,  to 
the  precise  hour,  a  long-past  eclipse,  which  the  learned  Bede, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  unable  to  calculate  to  the  day.  But  how 
far,  at  a  distance  nearly  two  centuries  from  the  time  of  this 
eclipse,  were  even  the  best  Irish  scholars  from  being  capable 
of  any  such  calculations  may  be  judged  from  a  letter,  still  ex- 
tant, on  this  very  subject  of  eclipses,  which  w^as  addressed  to 
Charlemagne  by  an  Irish  doctor  of  the  ninth  century,  named 
Dungal  *  The  letter  is  in  reply  to  a  question  proposed  by  the 
emperor  to  the  most  eminent  scholars  of  that  day  in  Europe, 
respecting  the  appearance,  as  had  been  alleged,  of  two  solar 
eclipses,  in  the  course  of  the  year  810 ;  and  the  Irish  doctor, 
though  so  far  right  as  to  express  his  doubts  that  these  two 
eclipses  had  been  visible,  is  unable,  it  is  plain,  to  assign  any 
scientific  reason  for  his  opinion.  Down  to  a  much  later  period, 
indeed,  so  little  had  the  Irish  scholars  advanced  in  this  science, 
that,  as  it  appears  from  'the  second  part  of  the  Annals  of  Inis- 
fallen,  they  had  one  year  f  experienced  much  difficulty  and  con- 
troversy before  they  could  succeed  even  in  fixing  Easter  Day. 
It  may  be,  therefore,  taken  for  granted,  that  it  was  not  from 
any  scientific  calculation  of  afler  times,  but  from  actual  and 
personal  observation  at  the  moment  that  this  accurate  date  of 
the  eclipse  in  664  was  derived.]:  With  equal  clearness  does  it 
follow  that  some  written  record  of  the  observation  must  have 
reached  those  annalists,  wiio,  themselves  ignorant  of  the  mode 
of  calculathig  such  an  event,  have  transmitted  it  accurately  to 
our  days  as  they  received  it.  There  are  still  earlier  eclipses,—^ 
one  as  far  back  as  a.  d.  496, — the  years  of  whose  appearance  we 
find  noted  down  by  the  chroniclers  with  equal  correctness :  and 
so  great  was  the  regularity  with  which,  through  every  suc- 
ceeding age,  all  such  changes  in  the  ordinary  aspect  of  the 
heavens  was  observed  and  registered,  that,  by  means  of  these 
records,  the  chronologist  is  enabled  to  trace  the  succession,  not 
only  of  the  monarchs  of  Ireland,  but  of  the  inferior  kings, 
bishops,  and  abbots,  from  the  first  introduction  of  Christianity, 
down  to  the  occupation  of  the  country  by  the  English. 

*  Epist.  Dungali  Ileclusi  ad  Carol.  Magnum  de  duplici  Solis  Eclipsi,  Ann. 
810.  This  letter  may  be  found  in  D'Af;h6ry's  Spicilegium,  torn,  iii.,  together 
with  some  critical  remark?  upon  it  by  Ismael  Bullialdus,  the  learned  champion 
of  the  Philolaic  system,  whom  D'Acliery  had  consulted  on  the  subject. 

t  Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  Prol.  2.  cx.xxvi.  Dr.  O'Connor  refers,  for  the  above 
record,  to  the  year  1444 ;  but  this  is  evidently  a  typographical  error,  such  as 
abound,  I  regret  to  say,  throughout  this  splendid  work,— the  continuation  of 
the  Annals  of  Inisfallen  having  come  down  no  further  than  the  year  1320. 

X  Annals  of  Tigernach.  For  the  substance  of  the  argument,  founded  upon 
this  record,  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  O'Connor,  Prol.  2.  cxxxiv. 


I 


AUTHENTICITY    OF    THE    IRISH    ANNALS.  145 

Having,  therefore,  in  the  accurate  date  of  the  eclipse  of  664, 
and  in  its  con-ect  transmission  to  succeeding  times,  so  strong 
an  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  written  record  at  that  period ; 
and  knowing,  moreover,  that  of  similar  phenomena  in  the  two 
preceding  centuries,  the  memory  has  also  been  transmitted 
down  to  after  ages,  it  is  not  surely  assuming  too  much  to  take 
for  granted  that  the  transmission  was  effected  in  a  simOar  man- 
ner ;  and  that  the  medium  of  written  record,  through  which 
succeeding  annalists  were  made  acquainted  with  the  day  and 
hour  of  the  solar  eclipse  of  664"*,  conveyed  to  them  also  the 
following  simple  memorandum  which  occurs  in  their  chroni- 
cles for  the  year  496. — "  Death  of  Mac-Cuilin,  bishop  of  Lusk. 
— An  eclipse  of  the  sun — The  pope  Gelasius  died." 

It  thus  appears  pretty  certain,  that,  as  far  back  as  the  cen- 
tury in  which  Christianity  became  the  established  faith  of  Ire- 
land, the  practice  of  chronicling  public  events  may  be  traced ; 
and  I  have  already  shown,  that  the  same  consecutive  chain  of 
records  carries  the  links  back,  with  every  appearance  of  histo- 
rical truth,  to  at  least  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era, 
if  not  to  a  century  or  two  beyond  that  period.  To  attempt  to 
fix,  indeed,  the  precise  time  when  the  confines  of  history  begin 
to  be  confused  with  those  of  fable,  is  a  task  in  Irish  antiquities, 
as  in  all  others,  of  mere  speculation  and  conjecture.f  It  has 
been  seen  that  Tigernach,  by  far  the  best  informed  and  most 
judicious  of  our  annalists,  places  the  dawn  of  certainty  in  Irish 
history  at  so  early  a  period  as  the  reign  of  Kimbaoth,  about 

*  The  dates  assigned  to  the  several  eclipses  are,  in  this  and  other  instances 
confirmed  by  their  accordance  with  the  catalogues  of  eclipses  composed  by 
modern  astronomers,  with  those  in  the  learned  work  of  the  Benedictines,  and 
other  such  competent  authorities.  There  is  even  an  eclipse,  it  appears,  no- 
ticed in  the  Annals  of  Ulster,  ad.  ann.  674,  which  has  been  omitted  in  VJirt 
de  verifier  les  Dates.— I^p.  Nunc.  xciv. 

t  According  to  Mr.  O'Connor  of  Balenacgare,  in  his  later  and  more  mode- 
rate stage  of  antiquarianism,  "  it  is  from  the  succession  of  Feredach  the  Just, 
and  the  great  revolution  soon  after,  under  Tuathal  the  Acceptable,  that  we 
can  date  exactness  in  our  Heathen  History."— Reflections  on  the  Hist,  of  Ire- 
land. The  period  here  assigned  commences  about  a.  d.  85.  A  Right  Reve- 
rend writer,  however,  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy,  car- 
ries his  faith  in  Irish  chronology  much  further.  "  A  general  agreement," 
says  Bishop  Barnard,  "  appears  in  the  names  and  lineage  of  that  long  series 
of  princes  that  succeeded  and  descended  from  the  first  conqueror  down  to  the 
fifth  century  ;  and  the  descent  of  the  collateral  branches  is  traced  up  to  the 
royal  stem  with  such  precision  and  consistency,  as  shows  it  to  have  been 
once  a  matter  of  public  concern.  The  later  bards  and  seanachies  could  not 
have  fabricated  tables  that  should  have  stood  the  test  of  critical  examination 
as  these  will  do ;  from  whence  I  infer,  that  they  have  been  a  true  transcript 
from  ancient  records  then  extant,  but  since  destroyed.  I  am  ready  to  admit, 
however,  that  the  transactions  of  those  times  are  mixed  with  the  fictions  of 
later  ages  ....  it  is,  therefore,  neither  to  be  received  nor  rejected  in  the 
gross,  but  to  be  read  with  a  sceptical  caution." — Enquiry  concerning  the  Ori- 
ginal, (^c,  by  Barnard,  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

Vol.  I.  13 


146 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


300  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ :  and  it  is  certain  that 
building  of  the  celebrated  Palace  of  Emania,  during  that  moi 
arch's  reign,  by  establishing  an  era,  or  fixed  point  of  tim^ 
from  whence  chronology  might  begin  to  calculate,  gives  to  t 
dates  and  accounts  of  the  succeeding  reigns  an  appearance 
accuracy  not  a  little  imposing.    This  apparent  exactness,  ho 
ever,  in  the  successions  previous  to  the  Christian  era,  will  nt 
stand  the  test  of  near  inquiry.     For  the  purpose  of  making  o 
a  long  line  of  kings  before  tiiat  period,  a  deceptive  scheme  of 
chronology  has  been  adopted ;  and  all  the  efforts  made  b^ 
O'Flaherty  and  others  to  connect  the  traditions  of  those  tim 
into  a  series  of  regular  history,  but  serve  to  prove  how  hopelei 
or,  at  least,  wholly  uncertain,  is  the  task. 

As  we  descend  towards  the  first  age  of  Christianity,  events 
stand  out  from  the  ground  of  tradition  more  prominently,  and 
begin  to  take  upon  them  more  of  the  substance  of  historical 
truth.  The  restoration,  under  Eochy  Feyloch,  of  the  ancient 
Pentarchy  whicli  liad  been  abolislied  by  the  monarch  Hugon 
— the  important  advance  made  in  civilization  during  the  reij 
of  Conquovar  Mac  Ness,  by  committing  the  laws  of  the  cou 
try  to  writing, — tliese  and  other  signal  events,  almost  coe 
with  the  commencement  of  Christianity,  border  so  closely  u 
that  period  to  whicli,  it  has  been  shown,  written  records  mi 
probably  extended,  as  to  be  themselves  all  but  historical. 

In  corroboration  of  the  view  here  taken  of  the  authentic^ 
of  the  Irish  Annals,  and  of  the  degree  of  value  and  confiden 
which  is  due  to  them,  1  need  but  refer  to  an  authority  whicH^ 
on  such  subjects,  ranks  among  the  higliest.  "  The  Chronicles 
of  Ireland,"  says  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  "  written  in  the  Irish 
language,  from  the  second  century  to  the  landing  of  Henry 
Plantagenet,  have  been  recently  published,  with  the  fullest 
evidence  of  their  genuineness  and  exactness.  The  Irish  na- 
tion, though  they  are  robbed  of  many  of  their  legends  by  this 
authentic  publication,  are  yet  by  it  enabled  to  boast  that  they 
possess  genuine  history  several  centuries  more  ancient  than 
any  other  European  nation  possesses,  in  its  present  spoken  lan- 
guage;—they  have  exchanged  their  legendary  antiquity  for 
historical  fame.  Indeed,  no  other  nation  possesses  any  monu- 
ment of  its  literature,  in  its  present  spoken  language,  which 
goes  back  within  several  centuries  of  the  beginning  of  these 
chronicles."*  

*  Hist,  of  England,  vol.  i.  chap.  2.  A  writer  in  tho  Edin.  Rev.  No.  xcii., 
in  speaking  of  Dr.  O'Connor's  work,  thus,  in  a  similar  manner,  expresses 
himself:—"  We  have  hero  the  works  of  the  ancient  Irish  historians,  divested 
of  modern  fable  and  romance  ;  and  whatever  opinion  may  be  formed  of  the 
early  traditions  they  record,  satisfactory  evidence  is  afforded  that  many  facts 


AUTHENTICITY    OF    THE    IRISH    KECOKDS.  147 

With  the  exception  of  the  mistake  into  which  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  has  here,  rather  unaccountably,  been  led,  in  sup- 
posing that,  among  the  written  Irish  chronicles  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  there  are  any  so  early  as  the  second  century, 
the  tribute  paid  by  him  to  the  authenticity  and  historical  im- 
portance of  these  documents*  appears  to  me,  in  the  highest 
degree,  deserved ;  and  comes  with  the  more  authority,  from  a 
writer  whose  command  over  the  wide  domain  of  history  ena- 
bled him  fully  to  appreciate  the  value  of  any  genuine  addition 
to  it. 

It  has  been  thus  clearly,  as  I  conceive,  demonstrated  that 
our  Irish  Annals  are  no  forgery  of  modern  times;  no  inven- 
tion, as  has  been  so  often  alleged,  by  modern  monks  and  versi- 
fiers :  but,  for  the  most  part,  a  series  of  old  authentic  records, 
of  which  the  transcripts  have  from  age  to  age  been  delivered 
down  to  our  own  times.  Though  confounded  ordinarily  with  the 
fabulous  tales  of  the  Irish  Bards,  these  narrations  bear  on  the 
face  of  them  a  character  the  very  reverse  of  poetical,  and 
such  as,  in  itself  alone,  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  their  truth. 
It  has  been  shown,  moreover,  that  the  lists  preserved  of  the 
ancient  Irish  kings  (more  ancient  than  those  of  any  other  coun- 
try in  modern  Europe)  are  regulated  by  a  system  of  chronolo- 
gy which,  however  in  many  respects  imperfect,  computes  its 
dates  in  the  ancient  mode,  by  generations  and  successions; 
and  was  founded  upon  the  same  measures  of  time — the  lunar 
year,  and  the  regular  recurrence  of  certain  periodical  festivals 
— by  which  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  other  great  nations 
of  antiquity,  all  computed  the  earlier  stages  of  their  respective 
careers. 

they  relate,  long  anterior  to  our  earliest  chroniclers,  rest  on  contemporary 

authority Some  of  Dr.  O'Connor's  readers  may  hesitate  to  admit  tlie 

degree  of  culture  and  prosperity  he  claims  for  his  countrymen  ;  but  no  one, 
we  think,  can  deny,  after  perusing  his  proofs,  that  the  Irish  were  a  lettered 
people,  while  the  Saxons  were  still  immersed  in  darkness  and  ignorance."  I 
.shall  add  one  other  tribute  to  the  merit  of  Dr.  O'Connor's  work,  coming  from 
a  source  which  highly  enhances  the  value  of  the  praise : — "  A  work,"  says 
Sir  F.  Palgrave,  "  which,  whether  we  consider  the  learning  of  the  editor,  the 
value  of  the  materials,  or  the  princely  munificence  of  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
liam,  at  whose  expense  it  was  produced,  is  without  a  parallel  in  modern  lite- 
rature."— Rise  of  the  English  Commoniocalth. 

*  How  little,  till  lately,  these  Annals  were  known,  even  to  some  who  have 
written  most  confidently  re.specting  Ireland,  may  he  seen  by  reference  to  a 
letter  addressed  by  Mr.  O'Connor  to  General  Vallancey,  acknowledging  his 
perusal  then,  for  the  first  time,  of  the  Annals  of  Tigernach  and  of  Inisfallen, 
which  his  venerable  friend  had  lately  lent  hhn.—RefierA.  on  Hist,  of  Ireland, 
Collect.  No.  10.  The  ignorance  of  Mr.  Beauford,  too,  a  professed  Irish  anti- 
quary, respecting  the  valuable  work  of  Tigernach,  is  shown  by  the  statement 
in  his  Druidism  Revived,  (Collectan.  Hib.  No.  vii.)  that  the  records  of  this 
annalist  commence  only  at  the  fifth  century,  "  without  making  the  least 
ijiention  of  the  pagan  state  of  the  Irish." 


148  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

REVIEW   OF   THE    INSTITUTIONS    AND   STATE   OF   CIVILIZATION   OF 
THE   PAGAN    IRISH. 

Having  thus  pointed  out  how  far  reliance  may  safely  be 
placed  on  that  brief  abstract  of  the  earlier  portion  of  Irisl 
history,  which  has  been  given  in  a  preceding  chapter,  it  may^ 
be  worth  while  to  pause  and  contemplate  the  picture  which 
this  period  of  our  annals  presents ;  a  picture  the  more  worthy 
of  attention,  as,  from  that  persevering  adherence  to  old  customs, 
habits,  and,  by  natural  consequence,  dispositions,  which  has 
ever  distinguished  the  course  of  the  Irish  people,  the  same 
peculiarities  of  character  that  mark  any  one  part  of  their 
country's  history  will  be  found  to  pervade  every  other ;  inso- 
much, that,  allowing  only  for  that  degree  of  advancement  in 
the  arts  and  luxuries  of  life,  which  in  the  course  of  time  could 
not  but  take  place,  it  may  be  asserted,  that  such  as  the  Irish 
were  in  the  early  ages  of  their  pentarchy,  such,  in  most  re- 
spects, they  have  remained  to  the  present  day. 

We  have  seen  that,  from  the  earliest  times  of  which  her 
traditions  preserve  the  memory,  Ireland  was  divided  into  a  cer- 
tain number  of  small  principalities,  each  governed  by  its  own 
petty  king,  or  dynast,  and  the  whole  subordinate  to  a  supreme 
monarch,  who  had  nominally,  but  seldom  really,  a  control 
over  their  proceedings.  This  form  of  polity,  which  continued 
to  be  maintained,  without  any  essential  innovation  upon  its 
principle,  down  to  the  conquest  of  the  country  by  Henry  IL, 
was  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Ireland,  but  was  the  system  com- 
mon to  the  whole  Celtic,  if  not  also  Teutonic  race*,  and,  like 
all  the  other  primitive  institutions  of  Europe,  had  its  origin  in 
the  East.  Without  going  so  far  back  as  the  land  of  Canaan, 
in  the  time  of  Joshua,  where  every  city  could  boast  its  own  king, 
we  find  that  the  small  and  narrow  territory  of  the  Phoenicians 
was,  in  a  similar  manner,  parcelled  out  into  kingdoms;  and 
from  Homer's  account  of  the  separate  dominions  of  the  Gre- 
cian chiefs,  it  would  seem  that  they  also  were  constructed 
upon  the  same  Canaanite  pattern.  The  feeling  of  clanship, 
indeed,  out  of  which  this  sort  of  government  by  a  chieftainry 

*  During  the  heptarchy,  the  island  of  Great  Britain  contained  about  fifteen 
kingdoms,  Saxon,  British,  and  Scotch ;  and  in  one  of  the  smallest  of  them, 
the  kingdom  of  Kent,  there  were  at  one  time  three  chiefs  on  whom  the  an- 
nalists bestow  the  title  of  king.    See  Edin.  Review,  No.lxx.  art.  12. 


THE  PRINCES  ELECTIVE.  149 

sprung,  appears  to  have  prevailed  strongly  in  Greece,  and  to 
have  been  one  of  the  great  cements  of  all  their  confederations, 
warlike  or  political.* 

In  none  of  these  countries,  however,  do  the  title  and  power 
of  Royalty  appear  to  have  been  partitioned  out  into  such  mi- 
nute divisions  and  subdivisions  as  in  the  provincial  government 
of  Ireland,  where,  in  addition  to  the  chief  king  of  each  pro- 
vince, every  subordinate  prince,  or  head  of  a  large  district, 
assumed  also  the  title  of  king,  and  exercised  effectually  within 
his  own  dominions  all  the  powers  of  sovereignty, — even  to  the 
prerogative  of  making  war,  not  only  with  his  coequal  princes, 
but  with  the  king  of  the  whole  province,  whenever  he  could 
muster  up  a  party  sufficiently  strong  for  such  an  enterprise. 

To  the  right  of  primogeniture,  so  generally  acknowledged 
in  those  ages,  no  deference  whatever  was  paid  by  the  Irish. 
Within  the  circle  of  the  near  kin  of  the  reigning  prince,  all 
were  alike  eligible  to  succeed  him ;  so  that  the  succession  may 
be  said  to  have  been  hereditary  as  to  the  blood,  but  elective  as 
to  the  person. t  Not  only  the  monarch  himself  was  created 
thus  by  election,  but  a  successor,  or  Tanistj;,  was,  during  his 
lifetime,  assigned  to  him  by  the  same  process ;  and  as  if  the 
position  alone  of  heir-apparent  did  not  render  him  sufficiently 
formidable  to  the  throne,  the  law,  in  the  earlier  ages,  also,  it  is 
said,  conferred  upon  him  the  right  of  being  chief  general  of 
the  army,  and  chief  judge  of  the  whole  state  or  kingdom.  For 
the  succession  to  the  minor  thrones  a  similar  provision  was 
made  :  to  every  petty  king  a  successor  was,  in  like  manner, 
appointed,  with  powers  proportioned  to  those  of  his  chief; 
and  thus,  in  addition  to  tlie  constant  dissension  of  all  these 


*  The  opinion  that  the  feudal  system  originated  in  the  East,  is  not  without 
some  strong  evidence  in  its  favour.  In  Diodorus  Siculus,  (lib.  1.)  we  find  the 
tenure  by  military  service  pretty  accurately  described,  and  said  to  be  a  cus- 
tom of  the  Egyptians,  as  well  as  of  some  Greek  cities  derived  from  them. 
AevTcpav  oe  ra^iv  ytvcadai  rrjv  rwv  ycwjuopwi',  toiv  o<pei\ovT(i)v  btrXa  K£KTr]<r9ai 
Kai  TToXtjiciv  {rTTCp  Trj^  Kff'Xecog,  hixoio>s  tois  kut  Aiyvnrov  evofxa^oixcvoig  ycwp- 
yois  Kai  Tovs  fia^Ljjiovs  Trapc^oiievois, 

See  Richardson,  (Dissert,  on  the  Languages,  &c.  of  Eastern  Nations),  who 
asserts  that  feudality  "flourished  in  the  East,  with  much  vigour,  in  very 
early  times." 

t  Campbell's  Strictures,  &c.  sect.  v. 

I  "Whoever  knows  any  thing  of  Irish  history  will  readily  agree,  that  an 
Irish  Tanist  of  a  royal  family,  even  after  those  of  that  quality  were  deprived 
of  the  judiciary  power,  and  not  always  invested  with  the  actual  command  of 
the  army,  was,  notwithstanding,  held  in  such  high  consideration,  as  to  be 
esteemed  nothing  less  than  a  secondary  king.  The  title  of  Righ-damnha, 
meaning  king  in  fieri,  was  generally  given  to  the  presumptive  succes.sor  of 
the  reigning  kir\g."—Di.tsert.  on  Laws  of  the  Jincient  frit'/i. 

13* 


150  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND 

princes  among  themselves*,  each  saw  by  his  side  an  adult  and^ 
powerful  rival,  chosen  generally  without  any  reference  to  his 
own  choice  or  will ;  and,  as  mostly  happens,  even  where  the 
successor  is  so  by  hereditary  right,  forming  an  "authorized  rally- 
ing-point  for  the  ambitious  and  disaffected. 

So  many  contrivances,  as  they  would  seem,  for  discord,  could 
not  but  prove  successful.  All  the  defects  of  the  feudal  system 
were  here  combined,  without  any  of  its  atoning  advantages. 
It  is  true  that  an  executive  composed  of  such  divided  and 
mutually  thwarting  powers  must  have  left  to  the  people  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  freedom ;  but  it  was  a  freedom,  under  its 
best  aspects,  stormy  and  insecure,  and  which  life  was  passed 
in  struggling  for,  not  in  enjoying.  The  dynasts  themselves, 
being,  from  their  position,  both  subjects  and  rulers,  were,  by 
turns,  tyrants  and  slaves:  even  the  monarchy  itself  was  often 
regarded  but  as  a  prize  to  the  strongest ;  and  faction  pervaded 
all  ranks,  from  the  hovel  to  the  supreme  throne.  Accordingly, 
as  may  be  gathered  from  even  the  comparatively  pacific  events 
I  have  selected,  commotion  and  bloodshed  were,  in  those  times, 
the  ordinary  course  of  public  affairs.  Among  the  numerous 
occupants  of  thrones,  the  tenure  of  authority  and  of  life  was 
alike  brief;  and  it  is  computed  that,  of  the  supreme  kings  who 
wielded  the  sceptre,  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
not  one  seventh  part  died  a  natural  death,  the  remaining  sove- 
reigns having  been  taken  oft*  in  the  field,  or  by  murder.  The 
same  rivalry,  the  same  temptations  to  violence,  were  in  opera- 
tion throughout  all  the  minor  sovereignties :  every  provincial 
king,  every  head  of  a  sept,  had  his  own  peculiar  sphere  of  tur- 
bulence, in  which,  on  a  smaller  scale,  the  same  scenes  were 
enacted ;  in  which  the  law  furnished  the  materials  of  strife, 
and  the  sword  alone  was  called  in  to  decide  it. 

Among  the  many  sources  of  this  discord  must  not  be  for- 
gotten those  tributes,  or  supplies,  which,  in  return  for  the  sub- 
sidies granted  to  them  by  their  superiors,  the  inferior  princes 
were  bound  to  furnish.  This  exchange  of  subsidy  and  tribute, — 
the  latter  being  usually  paid  in  cattle,  clothes,  utensils,  and, 
frequently,    military  aidf, — was    carried  on  proportionably 

*  The  following  is  OTlaherty's  applausive  view  of  this  system :— "  He 
(Seidell)  cjinnot  produce  an  instance  in  all  Europe  of  a  more  ancient,  perfect, 
or  better-establisiied  form  of  government  than  that  of  Ireland ;  where  the 
sovereign  power  was  concentered  in  one  king,  and  the  subaltern  power,  gra- 
dually descending  from  the  five  kings  to  the  lowest  classes  of  men,  represents 
and  exactly  resembles  the  Hierarchy  of  the  Celestial  Christ,  described  in  the 
verses  addressed  to  the  archangel  Michael:'— Ogyg.,  part  i.  book  1. 

t  There  is  extant  a  book  containing  the  laws  of  these  different  subsidies 
and  tributes,  called  the  Leabhar  na  Ceart,  or  Book  of  Rights,  and  attributed 
to  St.  Benin,  the  favourite  disciple  of  St.  Patrick.    It  is  clear,  however,  from 


PRIVILEGES    OF    THE    CHIEFTAINS.  151 

through  all  the  descending  scale  of  dynasties,  and  its  mutual 
obligations  enforced  as  strictly  between  the  lord  of  the  smallest 
rath  and  his  dependents,  as  between  the  monarch  and  his  sub- 
ordinate kings.  Among  the  various  forms  in  which  tribute 
was  exacted,  not  the  least  oppressive  were  those  periodical 
progresses  of  the  monarch,  during  which  he  visited  the  courts 
of  the  different  provincial  kings,  and  was,  together  with  his 
retinue,  entertained,  for  a  certain  time,  by  each.  Every  in- 
ferior lord  or  chieftain  assumed  a  similar  privilege,  and,  at 
certain  seasons,  visiting  from  tenant  to  tenant,  was  maintained, 
with  all  his  followers,  at  their  expense.  This  custom  was 
called,  in  after-times,  (by  a  name  not,  I  suspect,  of  Irish  origin), 
coshering. 

Though  the  acceptance  of  subsidy  from  the  monarch  implied 
an  acknowledgment  of  subordination  and  submission,  it  was  of 
a  kind  wholly  different  from  that  of  the  feoffees,  in  the  feudal 
system*,  who,  by  the  nature  of  their  tenures,  were  subjected 
to  military  service ;  v/hereas,  in  Ireland,  the  subordinate  princes 
were  entirely  free  and  independent  of  those  above  them,  hold- 
ing their  possessions  under  no  condition  of  any  service  or 
homage  whatsoever.!  Even  in  France,  the  great  feudatories, 
in  many  instances,  did  not  hesitate  to  take  arms  against  their 
sovereign ;  and  still  less  scrupulous,  it  may  be  supposed,  were 
the  numerous  free  tenants  of  thrones  under  the  Irish  system. f 

the  corslets  and  suits  of  armour  so  profusely  enumerated  in  the  list  of  royal 
gifts,  that  these  "  State  Laws  of  Subsidies,"  as  Vallancey  styles  them,  must 
have  been  of  a  much  later  date  ;  not  more  ancient,  probably,  than  those  songs 
and  tales  bearing  the  name  of  the  poet  Oisin,  in  which  a  similar  display  of 
rich  armour  is  prematurely  introduced.  An  account  of  this  curious  volume 
may  be  found  in  the  Trans.  Iberno-Celt.  Soc,  and  in  Vallancey's  Dissert,  on 
the  Laws  of  the  Ancient  Irish. 

*  That  there  was  a  degree  of  resemblance  between  the  feudal  system  and 
the  Irish,  will  appear  from  the  description  given  by  Mr.  Hallam  of  the  state 
of  France  at  the  time  when  Hugh  Capet  usurped  the  throne.  "  France,"  says 
this  admirable  historian,  "  was  rather  a  collection  of  states  partially  allied  to 
each  other,  than  a  single  monarchy.  The  kingdom  was  as  a  great  fief,  or 
rather  a  bundle  of  fiefs,  and  the  king  little  more  than  one  of  a  number  of 
feudal  nobles,  differing  rather  in  dignity  than  in  power  from  some  of  the 
rest." — View  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  jigcs.  There  were, 
Iiowever,  as  I  have  shown  above,  essential  differences  between  the  two  sys- 
tems ;  and  Mr.  Hallam  himself,  in  speaking  of  the  constitution  of  ancient 
Ireland,  remarks  that  the  relations  borne  by  the  different  ranks  of  chieftains 
to  each  other  and  to  the  crown,  may  only  loosely  be  called  federal."— Co7i5(i- 
tut.  Hist.  vol.  iii. 

t  This  principle  was  retained,  even  after  the  subjection  of  the  country  to 
the  English.  "  The  Irish  lords,"  says  Sir  J.  Davis,  "  did  only  promise  to  be- 
come tributary  to  Henry  II.,  and  such  as  pay  tribute  are  not  properly  sub- 
jects, but  sovereigns." 

I  According  to  Vallancey,  even  the  monarch  himself  was  no  more  exempt 
from  attack  than  the  rest  of  his  royal  brethren  :— "  Most  certain  it  is,  that 
the  provincial  kings  and  other  sovereigns  never  acknowledged  any  supreme 


152  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Sufficient  pretexts  for  withholding  tribute  from  the  monarch 
were  seldom  wanting  to  the  factious ;  and  hy  recourse  to  arms 
alone  could  the  sovereign,  in  such  cases,  seek  redress.  On  the 
eve,  sometimes,  of  a  battle,  the  tributaries  failed  in  bringing 
up  their  promised  aid ;  or,  still  worse,  entered  the  field  reluc- 
tantly, and,  on  the  first  attack,  took  flight* 

Under  any  circumstances,  so  general  and  constant  a  state  of 
warfare  must,  by  rendering  impossible  the  cultivation  of  the 
peaceful  arts,  prove  fatal  to  the  moral  advancement  of  the 
people ;  but  the  civil  and  domestic  nature  of  the  feuds  in  which 
the  Irish  were  constantly  engaged,  could  not  but  render  them, 
beyond  all  other  species  of  warfare,  demoralizing  and  de- 
grading. To  the  invasion  of  a  foreign  land  men  march  v^ith 
a  spirit  of  adventure,  which  throws  an  air  of  chivalry  even 
around  rapine  and  injustice ;  while  they  who  resist,  even  to 
the  death,  any  invasion  of  their  own,  are  sure  of  enlisting  the 
best  feelings  of  human  nature  in  their  cause.  But  the  san- 
guinary broils  of  a  nation  armed  against  itself  have  no  one 
elevating  principle  to  redeem  them,  and  are  inglorious  alike 
in  victory  and  defeat.  Whatever  gives  dignity  to  other  warfare 
was  wanting  in  these  personal,  factious  feuds.  The  peculiar 
bitterness  attributed  to  family  quarrels  marks  also  the  course 
of  civil  strife ;  and  that  flow  of  generous  feeling  which  so 
often  succeeds  to  fierce  hostility  between  strangers,  has  rarely, 
if  ever,  been  felt  by  parties  of  the  same  state  who  have  been 
once  arrayed  in  arms  against  each  other.  One  of  the  worst 
results,  indeed,  of  that  system  of  law  and  government  under 
which  Ireland  first  started  into  political  existence,  and  retained, 
in  full  vigour  of  abuse,  for  much  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
was  the  constant  obstacles  which  it  presented  to  the  growth  of 
a  public  national  spirit,  by  separating  the  mass  of  the  people 
into  mutually  hostile  tribes,  and  accustoming  each  to  merge 
all  thought  of  the  general  peace  or  welfare  in  its  own  factious 
views,  or  the  gratification  of  private  revenge. 

That  separate  states  may  be  so  bound  in  federate  union  as 
to  combine  effectively  for  all  the  great  purposes  of  peace  and 
war,  is  sufficiently  proved  by  more  than  one  historical  instance. 
But  there  was  no  such  form  or  principle  of  cohesion  in  the 
members  of  the  Irish  pentarchy.     The  interposing  power  as- 

rijjht  in  lhft.se  pretenders  to  monarchy,  but  always  asserted  their  own  inde- 
l)endency  a<?ainst  them  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  as  appears  most  glaringly 
from  the  Irish  Annals."— See  Vallancey's  clever  Dissertation  on  the  Laws  of 
the  Ancient  Irish,  written  by  him  at  the  commencement  of  his  career,  before 
the  Orientalism  of  our  Irish  antiquities  had  taken  sucli  a  disturbing  hold  of 
his  imagination. 
*  Leland,  Preliminary  Discourse. 


INTESTINE    DISCORD.  153 

signed,  theoretically,  to  the  monarch,  became  of  little  effect  in 
practice,  and,  in  moments  of  peculiar  violence,  when  most 
wanted,  was  always  least  efficient.  Part  of  the  business,  we 
are  told,  oP  the  triennial  assemblies  held  at  Tara  was  to  hear 
appeals  against  tyrannical  princes,  and  interpose  for  the  redress 
of  wrongs.  But  even  granting  these  conventions  to  have  been 
held  regularly,  which  appears  more  than  doubtful*,  it  is  plain 
that  in  the  rapid  succession  of  daily  scenes  of  blood  which 
stained  the  Irish  annals,  an  assembly  convened  but  once  in  every 
three  years  must  have  exercised  but  a  tardy  and  soon-forgotten 
influence. 

Such  a  course  of  discord  and  faction,  prolonged,  as  it  was, 
through  centuries,  could  not  fail  to  affect  materially  the  gene- 
ral character  of  the  nation,  and  to  lay  deep  the  seeds  of  future 
humiliation  and  weakness.  A  people  divided  thus  among 
themselves  must  have  been,  at  all  times,  a  ready  prey  for  the 
invader ;  and  the  fatal  consequences  of  such  disunion  were 
shown  most  lamentably,  a  few  centuries  afler  this  period,  when, 
as  will  be  seen,  by  Irish  assistance  alone  were  the  Danish  ma- 
rauders enabled  to  preserve  the  footing  they  so  long  and  so 
ruinously  held  in  the  country,  f  By  the  same  causes,  though 
existing,  perhaps,  in  a  much  less  aggravated  degree,  were  the 
Celts,  both  of  Britain  and  Gaul,  brought  so  easily  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Romans.  The  politic  use  to  which  the  rival 
factions  among  the  Gauls  might  be  turned,  could  not  escape 
the  acute  observation  of  Caesar ;  and  history,  which  has  lefl 
untold  the  name  of  the  recreant  Irishman  who,  as  we  have 
seen,  proffered  his  treasonable  services  in  the  camp  of  Agricola, 
has,  with  less  charity,  recorded  tliat  of  the  British  chief  Man- 
dubratius,  who,  from  motives  of  mere  personal  revenge,  invited 
CflBsar  into  Britain.  |     Even  in  the  earliest  periods  of  Irish  his- 

*  If  we  may  believe  O'Halloran,  the  meetings  of  the  great  Fes  of  Tearaor 
were  interrupted  even  for  centuries.  In  speaking  of  the  convention  held  in 
the  reign  of  Ugony  the  Great,  he  says,  "  This,  by  the  by,  is  the  first  instance 
for  above  two  centuries  of  the  meeting  of  the  Feis  Taniarach,  or  General 
Convention  of  the  Estates  of  the  Kingdom  at  Tara,  except  such  a  one  as 
was  appointed  by  Ciombhaoth,  of  which  I  have  not  sufficient  authority  posi- 
tively to  affirm." — Vol.  ii.  chap.  v. 

t"The  annals  of  the  country  bear  unanimous  testimony  to  the  melan- 
choly truth,  that  in  these  plundering  expeditions  they  (the  Danes)  were 
frequently  aided  by  some  of  the  native  Irish  princes,  who,  either  anxious 
to  diminish  the  preponderating  power  of  some  neighbouring  chieftain,  or 
desirous  to  revenge  some  real  or  imaginary  insult  received,  or,  perhaps, 
willing  to  share  in  the  spoils  of  an  opulent  neighbour,  were  always  forward 
to  join  the  common  enemy :'—0'Re4lly,  on  the  Brekon  Laws,  Trans.  R.  I.  A. 
vol.  xiv. 

X  According  to  the  etymologist  Baxter,  the  name  of  Mandubratius  signifies 
"  the  Betrayer  of  his  Country,"  and  was  affixed  to  this  chieftain,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  treason  : — "  Inde  populari  Cassivelanorum  convicio,  Mandu 
bratur  tanquam  Patrice  proditor  appellatus  e.st," 


154  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

tory  may  be  detected  some  traces  of  this  faithless  spirit,  which 
internal  dissensions  and  mutual  distrust  are  sure  to  generate 
among  a  people ;  and  the  indistinct  story  of  the  flight  of  Labhra, 
a  Lemster  prmce,  into  Gaul,  and  his  return  from  thence  at 
the  head  of  Gaulish  troops,  sufficiently  intimates  that  such  ap- 
peals to  foreign  intervention  were,  even  in  Agricola's  time, 
not  new. 

While  such  were  the  evils  arising  from  the  system  accord- 
ing to  which  power  was  distributed,  no  less  mischiefs  flowed 
from  the  laws  which  regulated  the  distribution  of  property.  In 
all  cases  where  property  was  connected  with  chieftainry,  the 
right  of  succession  was  regulated  in  the  same  manner  as  that 
of  the  succession  to  the  throne.  During  the  lifetime  of  the 
reigning  chief,  some  person  of  the  sept,  his  brother,  son,  or 
cousin,  was  appointed  by  election  to  succeed  him  ;  and  lands 
devolved  in  this  manner  were,  like  the  inheritanee  of  the  crown, 
exempt  from  partition.  To  the  chosen  successors  of  kings  the 
title  of  Roydamna  was  in  general  applied ;  but  the  person  ap- 
pointed to  succeed  one  of  the  inferior  chiefs  was  always  called 
a  Tanist.  Wherever  inheritances  were  not  connected  with 
either  royalty  or  chieflamry,  their  descent  was  regulated  by 
the  custom  of  Gavelkind, — a  usage  common  to  both  Gothic  and 
Celtic  nations, — and  the  mode  in  which  property  was  parti- 
tioned and  re-partitioned  under  this  law,  threw  a  constant  un- 
certainty round  its  tenure,  and  in  time  frittered  away  its  sub- 
stance. 

On  the  death  of  the  Cean  Finne,  or  head  of  a  sept,  his  suc- 
cessor, who  became  such  not  by  inheritance,  but  by  election, 
or  strong  hand,  assembled  all  the  males  of  the  sept,  and  divid- 
ed the  lands,  at  his  discretion,  between  them.  Whenever  any 
of  these  inferior  tenants  died,  the  sept  was  again  called  to- 
gether, and  their  several  possessions  being  all  thrown  into 
hotch-potch,  a  new  partition  of  all  was  made ;  in  which  the  son 
of  him  who  had  died  did  not  receive  the  portion  his  father  had 
possessed,  but  a  share  of  the  whole  was,  according  to  seniority, 
allotted  to  every  male  of  the  sept.  As  soon  as  another  tenant 
died,  the  tenure  of  the  property  was  again  disturbed,  and  the 
same  process  of  partition,  in  the  same  invariable  mode,  re- 
peated. It  appears  that  to  the  Cean  Finne,  or  head  of  the 
family,  was  reserved  a  chief  rent  on  the  gavelled  lands,  which 
maintained  his  power  and  influence  over  the  members  of  the 
sept ;  and  in  the  event  of  any  of  them  forfeiting  or  dying  with- 
out issue,  secured  a  reversion  to  him  of  the  property  of  the 
gavel  lands  so  held.* 

*"  It  13  also  said,  tliat  when  the  gavel  was  made  by  the  father,  after  his 
death  the  equal  share  which  he  allotted  to  himself,  went  to  the  eldest  son. 


INHERITANCE    BY    GAVELKIND.  155 

By  the  custom  of  Gavelkind,  as  it  existed  among  the  Irish, 
females  of  every  degree  were  precluded  from  the  inheritance ; 
while  illegitimate  sons  were  equally  entitled  with  the  legiti- 
mate to  their  portions  of  the  land.  The  exclusion  of  females 
from  inheritance*, — a  law  characteristic  of  those  times,  when 
lands  were  won  and  held  on  condition  of  military  service 
alone, — was  common  to  the  Irish  with  most  other  early  nationsf 
as  well  Teutons  as  Celts ;  though  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  all  the  Teutonic  tribes  adopted  it.J  The  admission  of 
natural  children,  however,  to  a  legal  right  of  inheritance,  may 
be  pronounced  a  custom  peculiar  to  Ireland.  General  Vallan- 
cey,  in  his  zeal  to  ennoble  all  that  is  connected  with  Irish  an- 
tiquity, endeavours  to  show  that  this  custom  is  of  patriarchal 
origin,  citing,  as  his  only  instance,  that  of  the  children  of  Jacob 
by  the  handmaids^of  his  wives  Leah  and  Rachel,  who  enjoyed, 
among  the  heads  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  a  station  equal 
to  that  of  the  children  of  his  solemnly  married  wives.  But 
the  instance,  besides  being  a  solitary  one,  as  well  as  attended 

according  to  the  maxim  of  the  patriarchs,  who  allowed  a  double  proportion 
to  the  first  born.  And,  lastly,  like  the  twin  tenure  of  Kent,  it  was  not  sub- 
ject to  escheat  for  treason  or  felony."— D'jilton,  Essay  on  the  jjntiquities  of 
Ireland. 

♦Consistently  with  his  notion  that  the  Britons  and  the  Irish  were  derived 
from  the  same  stock,  the  Historian  of  Manchester  represents  this  custom  as 
existing  also  in  Britain  ;  but  at  the  same  time,  for  this,  as  well  as  for  many 
other  Irish  usages,  whicti  he  endeavours  to  prove  common  to  both  countries, 
refers  to  evidence  relating  to  Ireland  alone.  It  is  difficult,  indeed,  upon  any 
point,  to  place  much  faith  in  an  historian  who,  to  prove  that  the  descent  of 
the  crown  among  the  Britons  flowed  in  the  course  of  hereditary  and  lineal 
succession,  tells  us  gravely  that  "  Trenmof,  Trathal,  Comhal,  and  Fingal— 
father,  son,  grandson,  and  great-grandson— successively  inherited  the  nio- 
narchy  of  Morven  for  their  patrimony."— /A*,/,,  of  Manchester,  book  I.  chap, 
viii.  sect.  2. 

]  Mr.  O'ReiUy  (Es.sa2j  on  the  Brehon  Laws)  denios  that  females  in  Ireland 
were  excluded  from  the  inheritance  of  lands  ;  but  unfortunately  adduces  no 
authority  in  support  of  his  assertion.  "  If  it  would  not  extend  this  Essay 
(he  says)  to  an  unreasonable  length,  examples  might  be  given  from  the  an- 
cient Irish  laws  sufficient  to  prove  that  women  exercised  the  right  of  chiefry 
over  lands  properly  their  own,  and  had  a  power  to  dispose  of  all  their  chattel 
property  at  their  pleasure."  He  afterwards  adds,  "  But  supposing  that  Irish 
women  did  not  enjoy  landed  property,  the  same  must  be  said  of  the  women 
of  several  other  ancient  nations."  This  sort  of  reversionary  successor  re 
sembles,  in  some  respects,  the  adscititious  Caesars,  or  presumptive  heirs  of 
the  imperial  office,  among  the  Romans. 

I  "  In  a  word,"  says  General  Vallancey,  "  all  the  Teutonic  or  German  na- 
tions excluded  the  daughters  from  sharing  with  their  brothers  or  other  heirs 
male  in  the  father's  landed  inheritance."  This  is  not,  however,  the  case. 
In  the  Burgundian  law,  one  of  the  most  ancient  codes  of  the  barbarians, 
is  the  following  passage  :— "  Inter  Burgundiones  id  volumus  custodiri,  ut  si 
quis  filium  non  reliquerit,  in  loco  filii  filia  in  patris  matrisque  hereditate 
siiccedat."  The  reader  will  find  this,  and  other  instances  to  the  same  pur- 
po.se,  cited  in  an  able  article  on  Mr.  Hallam'B  Middle  Ages,  Edin.  Review. 
No.  lix. 


156  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

with  peculiar  circumstances,  is  by  no  means  sufficient  to  prove 
that  such  was  the  patriarchal  custom ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  significant  act  of  Abraham,  in  presenting  only  gifts  to  his 
natural  children,  and  separating  them  from  his  son  Isaac,  marks, 
as  definitely  as  could  be  required,  the  distinction  then  drawn 
between  legitimate  and  illegitimate  children  * 

As,  in  all  communities,  property  is  the  pervading  cement  of 
society,  a  state  of  things  such  as  has  been  just  described,  in 
which  its  tenure  was  kept,  from  day  to  day,  uncertain,  and  its 
relations  constantly  disturbed,  was  perhaps  the  least  favourable 
that  the  most  perverted  ingenuity  could  have  devised,  for  either 
the  encouragement  of  civilization  or  the  maintenance  of  peac'e.f 
The  election  of  a  Tanist,  too,  with  no  more  definite  qualifica- 
tions prescribed  than  that  he  should  be  chosen  from  among  the 
oldest  and  most  worthy  of  the  sept,  opened,  whenever  it  oc- 
curred, as  fertile  a  source  of  contention  and  rivalry  as  a  people, 
ready  at  all  times  for  such  excitement,  could  desire.  How- 
ever great  the  advantages  attending  an  equal  division  of  de- 
scendible property,  in  communities  advanced  sufficiently  in 
habits  of  industry  to  be  able  to  profit  by  those  advantages,"^  the 
effect  of  such  a  custom  among  a  people  like  the  Irish,  the  great 
bulk  of  whom  were  in  an  uncivilized  state,  was  evidently  but 
to  nurse  in  them  that  disposition  to  idleness  which  was  one  of 
the  main  sources  of  their  evils,  and  to  add  to  their  other  im- 
munities from  moral  restraint,  the  want  of  that  powerful  influ- 
ence which  superior  wealth  must  always  enable  its  possessor 
to  exercise.     Had  there  been  any  certainty  in  the  tenure  of 

*  It  is  asserted  by  Eustathiiis,  that,  among  the  Greeks,  as  low  as  the  time 
of  the  Trojan  war,  illegitimate  children  stood  on  equal  grounds  of  favour 
with  the  legitimate  ;  but,  except  occasionally,  as  in  such  instances  as  that 
of  Teucer,  where  the  high  rank  of  both  parents  throws  a  lustre  round  the 
offence,  or  in  cases  where  a  god  was  called  in  to  bear  the  burthen  of  the 
offspring,  there  appears,  among  the  Greeks,  to  have  been  as  much  disgrace 
attached  to  illegitimacy,  as  among  any  other  people.  So  far  were  their  laws 
from  allowing  children  of  this  description  to  inherit,  that,  in  fixing  the 
utmost  amount  of  money  which  it  was  lawful  for  a  father,  at  any  lime,  to 
give  them,  it  was  strictly  provided  that  such  sum  could  only  be  given  during 
his  lifetime. 

t  In  speaking  of  the  annual  partition  of  their  lands,  by  the  ancient  Ger- 
mans, as  described  by  Caesar  (lib.  vi.  cap.  22.),  Sir  F.  Palgrave  says,  "  If,  as 
we  are  told  by  Caesar,  the  Germans  wished  to  discourage  agriculture  and 
civilization,  the  means  were  excellently  adapted  to  the  end;  and  to  under- 
stand the  rural  economy  of  the  barbaric  nations,  we  must  always  keep  in 
mind  that  their  habitations  were  merely  encampments  upon  the  land.  In- 
stead of  firm  and  permanent  mansions,  constituting  not  only  the  wealth,  but 
the  defence  of  the  wealth  of  the  owner,  we  must  view  the  Teuton  and  the 
Celt  dwelling  in  wattled  hovels  and  turf-built  sheelings,  which  could  be  raised 
in  the  course  of  a  night,  and  abandoned  without  regret  or  sacrifice,  when 
the  partition  of  the  district  compelled  every  inhabitant  to  accept  a  new  do- 
micile.    Such  was  the  state  of  Ireland."— Vol.  i.  chap.  3. 


DISADVANTAGES    OF    SUCH    INHERITANCE.  157 

the  property,  when  once  divided,  most  of  the  evils  attending 
the  practice  might  have  been  escaped.  But  the  new  partition 
of  all  the  lands,  whenever  a  djsaXh  occurred  in  the  sept,  and 
the  frequent  removal  or  translation  of  the  inferior  tenants  from 
one  portion  to  another,  produced  such  uncertainty  in  the  tenure 
of  all  possessions,  as  mEide  men  reckless  of  the  future,  and 
completely  palsied  every  aim  of  honest  industry  and  enter- 
prise. By  the  habits  of  idleness  thus  engendered,  the  minds 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  people  were  left  vacant  and  restless, 
to  seek  employment  for  themselves  in  mischief,  and  follow 
those  impulses  of  wild  and  ungoverned  passion,  of  which  their 
natures  were  so  susceptible. 

One  of  the  worst  political  consequences  of  these  laws  of 
property  was,  that,  by  their  means,  the  division  of  the  people 
into  tribes  or  clans,  so  natural  in  the  first  infancy  of  society, 
was  confirmed  and  perpetuated.  The  very  warmth  and  fidelity 
with  which  the  members  of  each  sept  combined  among  them- 
selves, but  the  more  alienated  them  from  every  other  part  of 
the  community,  and  proportionably  diminished  their  regard  for 
the  general  welfare. 

Another  evil  of  the  social  system,  under  such  laws,  was  the 
false  pride  that  could  not  fail  to  be  engendered  by  that  sort  of 
mock  kingship,  that  mimic  sovereignty,  which  pervaded  the 
whole  descending  scale  of  their  grandees,  down  to  the  Ruler 
of  a  small  Rath,  or  even  the  possessor  of  a  few  acres,  who,  as 
Sir  John  Davies  says,  "  termed  himself  a  Lord,  and  his  portion 
of  land  his  country."  As  even  the  lowest  of  these  petty  po- 
tentates would  have  considered  it  degrading  to  follow  any  call- 
ing or  trade,  a  multitude  of  poor  and  proud  spirits  were  left  to 
ferment  in  idleness  ;  and,  there  being  but  little  vent,  in  foreign 
warfare,  for  such  restlessness,  till  towards  the  decline  of  the 
Roman  power  in  Britain,  it  expended  itself  in  the  struggles  of 
domestic  faction  and  fierce  civil  broils.  Nor  was  it  only  by 
the  relative  position  of  the  difl^erent  classes  of  the  country,  but 
by  that  also  of  the  difl^'erent  races  which  inhabited  it,  that  the 
aliment  of  this  false  pride  was  so  abundantly  ministered.  The 
same  barbarous  right  of  conquest  by  which  the  Spartans  held 
their  helots  in  bondage,  was  claimed  and  exercised  by  the 
Scotic  or  dominant  caste  of  Ireland,  not  merely  over  the  great 
mass  of  the  population,  but  also  over  the  remains  of  the  earliest 
colonists — the  Belgians  and  Damnonians.  Leaving  to  the  de- 
scendants of  these  ancient  people  only  the  mechanic  and  ser- 
vile occupations,  their  masters  reserved  to  themselves  such 
employments  as  would  not  degrade  their  high  original ;  and  it 
was  not  till  the  reign  of  Tuathal,  as  we  have  Seen,  when  a 

Vol.  L  14 


158  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

committee,  empowered  by  a  general  assembly  of  the  states 
took  the  management  of  the  trade  and  manufactures  into  their 
care,  that  any  of  the  ruling  caste  condescended  to  employ 
themselves  in  such  pursuits.  But,  besides  this  subject  or  con- 
quered class,  whose  position,  in  relation  to  their  Scotic  masters, 
corresponded,  in  some  respects,  with  that  of  the  Coloni  among 
the  Franks,  and  the  Ceorls  among  the  Anglo-Saxons,  there 
w^re  also  purchased  slaves,  still  lower,  of  course,  in  the  social 
scale,  and  forming  an  article  of  regular  commerce  among  the 
Irish,  both  at  this  period  and  for  many  centuries  after.  We 
shall  see  that  St.  Patrick,  whom,  as  1  have  already  stated,  the 
soldiers  of  the  monarch  Nial  carried  off  as  a  captive  from  the 
coast  of  Armoric  Gaul,  was,  on  his  arrival  in  Ireland,  sold  as  a 
common  slave. 

It  has  been  already  remarked  that  the  system  of  polity  main- 
tained in  Ireland  bore,  in  many  respects,  a  resemblance  to  the 
feudal ;  and  some  of  those  writers  who  contend  for  a  northern 
colonization  of  this  country,  have  referred  to  the  apparently 
Gothic  character  of  her  institutions,  as  a  confirmation  of  their 
opinion.  In  all  probability,  however,  the  elements  of  what  is 
called  the  feudal  system  had  existed  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  in 
Britain  and  Gaul,  many  ages  before  even  the  oldest  date  usu- 
ally assigned  to  the  first  introduction  of  feudal  law  into  Europe ; 
being  traceable,  perhaps,  even  to  the  landing  of  the  first  colo- 
nies on  these  shores,  when,  in  parcelling  out  their  new  terri- 
tory, and  providing  for  its  defence,  there  would  naturally  be 
established,  between  the  leaders  and  followers,  in  sucli  an 
enterprise,  those  relations  of  fealty  and  protection,  of  service 
and  reward,  which  the  common  object  they  were  alike  engaged 
in  would  necessarily  call  forth,  and  in  which  the  principle  and 
the  rudiments  of  the  feudal  policy  would  be  found.  It  has 
been  shown  by  Montesquieu,  from  the  law  of  the  Burgundians, 
that  when  that  Vandal ic  nation  first  entered  Gaul,  they  found 
the  tenure  of  land  by  service  already  existing  among  the 
people.* 

Little  doubt,  therefore,  as  there  is  of  a  Scythic  or  Gothic 
colony  having,  about  a  century  or  two  before  our  era,  gained 
possession  of  Ireland,  no  evidence  thereof  is  to  be  looked  for 
in  the  laws  and  usages  of  that  country,  which,  on  the  contrary, 
bear  impressed  on  them  the  marks  of  Celtic  antiquity  ;  having 
existed,  perhaps,  through  at  least  as  many  centuries  before  the 

*  "  II  est  dit,  dans  la  loi  des  Bourguignons,  que  quand  ces  peuples  6tablirent 
dans  les  Gaules,  ils  recurent  les  deux  tiers  des  terres,  et  le  tiers  des  serfs.  La 
servitude  de  la  glfibe  btoit  done  6tablie  dans  cette  partie  de  la  Gaule  avant 
l'entr6e  des  Bourguignons."— Liv.  xxx.  chap.  10. 


OPPOSITE    OPINIONS    OF    HISTORIANS.  159 

coming  of  St.  Patrick,  as  they  are  known  to  have  continued  to 
exist  after  that  event,  and  with  scarcely  a  shadow  of  change. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  the  probable  degree  of  civilization 
which  the  people  of  Ireland,  in  those  early  ages,  may  have 
attained,  it  will  be  found  that  the  picture  of  their  state  trans- 
mitted to  us,  as  well  in  their  own  annals  as  in  the  representa- 
tions of  others,  is  made  up  of  direct  contrasts* ;  and  that  there 
is  not  a  feature  in  their  history,  indicative  of  an  advance  in 
social  refinement,  that  is  not  counteracted  by  some  other 
stamped  with  the  strongest  impress  of  barbarism.  It  is  only 
by  compounding  between  these  two  opposite  extremes,  that  a 
just  medium  can  be  attained,  and  that  the  true,  or  at  least  pro- 
bable, state  of  the  case,  can  be  collected  from  such  evidence. 

The  double  aspect,  indeed,  under  which  the  ancient  charac- 
ter of  the  country  thus  glimmers  upon  us,  through  the  mists 
of  time,  has  divided  the  writers  who  treat  of  her  antiquities 
into  two  directly  opposite  parties  ;  and  as  if  even  the  history  of 
Ireland  was  fated  to  be  made  a  subject  of  faction,  the  contest  has 
been  carried  on  by  the  respective  disputants,  with  a  degree  of 
vehemence  and  even  bitterness  which,  on  a  question  relating 
to  personages  and  events  so  far  removed  into  past  ages,  appears 
not  a  little  extraordinary.  While,  on  the  one  side,  tlie  warm 
zealots  in  the  cause  of  Ireland  exalt  to  such  a  height  the 
standard  of  her  early  civilization,  as  to  place  it  on  a  level  with 
that  of  the  proudest  states  of  antiquity, — describing  the  sump- 
tuous palaces  of  her  kings,  the  grand  assemblies  of  her  legis- 
lators, the  institutions  of  her  various  orders  of  chivalry,  and  the 
collegiate  retreats  of  her  scholars, — wliile  thus,  the  Keatings, 
Walkers,  O'Hallorans,  availing  themselves  as  well  of  the 
falsehood  as  of  the  facts  of  Irish  tradition  and  history,  have 
agreed  in  picturing  the  early  times  of  their  country  as  a  per- 
fect golden  age  of  glory,  political  wisdom,  and  refinement ; 
their  opponents,  the  Ledwiches  and  Pinkertons,  alike  confident 
in  the  strength  of  their  evidence,  pronounce  the  whole  of  the 
very  same  period  to  have  been  one  unreclaimed  waste  of  igno- 
rance and  barbarism. 

The  chief  authorities  upon  which  this  latter  view  of  the 
question  rests,  are,  among  the  Greek  writers,  Diodorus  Siculus 

*  The  character  of  the  Issedones,  a  people  of  antiquity  mentioned  by  He- 
rodotus, was,  in  like  manner,  represented  in  perfectly  different  aspects  to  the 
world.  While,  like  the  ancient  Irish,  they  were  accused  of  feeding  on  the 
flesh  of  their  parents,  there  are  mentioned  qualities  belonging  to  them, 
characteristic  of  a  refined  people.  "  They  venerate  justice,"  says  Herodotus, 
"  and  allow  their  females  to  enjoy  equal  authority  with  the  men."  It  is  in 
the  same  book  of  his  work  where  he  attributes  to  them  this  mark  of  social 
refinement,  that  he  tells  us  they  cooked  and  ate  their  dead  parents. 


160  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

and  Strabo ;  and  among  the  Romans,  Pomponius  Mela  and  Soli- 
nus.  By  all  these  four  writers,  who  flourished,  at  successive 
intervals,  from  a  period  just  preceding  the  Christian  era  to 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  Ireland  is  represented 
to  have  been,  at  the  respective  tunes  when  they  lived,  in  a  state 
of  utter  savageness.  According  to  Strabo*  and  Diodorusf  the 
natives  were  in  the  habit  of  feeding  upon  human  flesh ;  the 
former  writer  adding,  that  the  corpses  of  their  parents  were 
their  favourite  food,  and  that  they  committed  incest  publicly. 
The  description  of  them  by  Pomponius  Mela  is  more  general, 
but  fully  as  strong :  "  They  had  no  sense  whatever,"  he  says, 
"  of  virtue  or  religion^:"  and  Solinus  also,  in  mentioning  some 
of  their  barbarous  customs,  declares  "  that  they  made  no  dis- 
tinction between  right  and  wrong." § 

Were  there  not  strong  grounds  for  calling  in  question  their 
claims  to  authority,  as  regards  Ireland,  the  evidence  of  these 
writers  would  possess,  of  course,  conbiderable  weight.  But  the 
truth  is,  to  none  of  them,  and,  least  of  all,  to  the  two  most  an- 
cient and  respectable  of  the  number,  Diodorus  and  Strabo,  is 
any  attention,  on  the  subject  of  a  country  so  wholly  unknown 
to  them,  to  be  paid.  The  ready  reception  given  by  Diodorus 
to  all  stray  fictions,  even  in  those  parts  of  his  work  not  profess- 
edly fabulous,  would,  in  itself,  justify  some  degree  of  distrust 
in  any  statements  of  his  not  otherwise  sustained.  But  in  the 
case  of  Ireland  there  was,  in  addition  to  this  too  easy  belief,  an 
entire  ignorance  on  the  subject.  Writing  his  great  work  be- 
fore the  Romans  had  made  any  settlement  in  Britain,  ke  but 
shared  in  the  general  darkness  then  prevailing,  both  among 
Romans  and  Greeks,  with  regard  to  the  state,  history,  and  even 
geographical  position  of  the  British  Isles,  jj     More  than  half  a 

*  The  charges  of  Strabo  against  Ireland  are  contained  in  the  following 
passage  : — Htpi  f)S  ov6ev  cx^ofiiv  Xcyeiv  cra(pcst  tX/jv  on  aypicoTcpoi  twv  Bpcr- 
Tavu)v  virapyovffiv  hi  KaroiKOvvTCs  avrqv,  avOpwirocpayoi  tc  owes  '^a'  noXvipa- 
yoi,  (al.  nor]<f>ayoi)  tovs  ^c  -Kartpai  TtXivT-naavrai  KareaOuiv  ev  kuXw  tiQeucvoi 
Kai  (^avtpws  /ito-y£ff0ai  rati  tc  aXXais  yvvai^i  yai  fiijTpaai.  /cat  ahzX<pati. — 
Lib.  iv. 

f'They  eat  men,"  says  Diodorus,  in  speaking  of  the  Gauls,  'Mike  the 
Britons  inhabiting  Iris,  or  Irin."  «I>acri  rtvas  av6p(j)i:ovi  taduiv.,  oxrncp  kui 
Twv  (iptrravwv  rovi  KUTToiKovvTag  ttjv  ovojxa^oixtviiv  Ipiv — Lib.  v.  Of  the  ap- 
plication of  this  passage  to  Ireland,  Rennel  thus  doubtfully  speaks:—"  It  is 
not  altogether  certain,  though  highly  probable,  that  the  country  intended  is 
Ireland." 

X  Omnium  virtutum  ignari,  pietatis  admodum  expertes.— Lib.  iii.c.  6. 

§  Fas  atque  nefas  eodem  animo  ducunt. 

11  Diodorus  himself  acknowledges  that,  at  the  time  when  he  wrote,  the 
British  isles  were  among  the  regions  least  known  to  the  world :— 'H/ctara 
ncTTTdxcv  vKo  Tt]v  Koivrjv  av9p(i)7:u)v  tniyvwaiv.—'Lib.  iii. 


EARLY    COMMERCE.  161 

century  after  Diodorus  had  completed  his  history,  we  find  Pom- 
ponius  Mela  declaring,  that  until  the  expedition  of  the  empe- 
ror Claudius,  then  in  progress,  Britain  had  been  shut  out  from 
the  rest  of  the  world.*  When  such,  till  that  period,  had  been 
the  general  ignorance  respecting  Britain,  it  may  be  judged  how 
secluded  from  the  eyes  of  Europe  must  have  been  the  still 
more  western  island  in  her  neighbourhood ;  and  how  little 
known  its  internal  state,  except  to  those  Celtic  and  Iberian 
tribes  of  Spain,  with  whom  the  commerce  which  then  fre- 
quented the  Irish  harbours,  i^ust  have  been  chiefly  inter- 
changed. It  is,  indeed,  curious,  as  contrasted  with  the  reports 
of  her  brute  barbarism  just  cited,  that  the  first  authentic 
glimpse  given  of  the  state  of  Ireland  by  the  Romans,  should 
be  to  disclose  to  us  such  a  scene  of  busy  commerce  in  her  har- 
bours, and  of  navigators  in  her  waters ;  while,  to  complete  the 
picture,  at  the  same  moment,  one  of  her  subordinate  kings  was 
a  guest,  we  are  told,  in  the  tent  of  Agricola,  and  negotiating 
with  him  for  military  aid. 

The  geographer  Strabo,  another  of  the  witnesses  adduced  in 
proof  of  Irish  barbarism,  was  equally,  disqualified  with  Diodo- 
rus from  giving  evidence  upon  the  sulDJect,  and  from  precisely 
the  same  cause,— his  entire  ignorance  of  all  relating  to  it. 
Even  on  matters  lying  within  the  sphere  of  his  own  peculiar 
science,  this  able  geographer  has,  in  his  account  of  Ireland, 
fallen  into  the  most  gross  and  presumptuous  errorsf;  presump- 
tuous, inasmuch  as  some  of  them  were  maintained  in  direct 
and  wilful  defiance  of  what  had  been  delivered  down,  upon  the 
same  points,  by  the  ancient  Greek  geographers,  who,  fi'om  fol- 
lowing closely  in  the  steps  of  the  Phoenicians,  were,  in  most 
instances,  correct.  It  ought,  however,  in  justice  to  Strabo,  to 
be  mentioned,  that  he  prefaces  his  account  of  the  Irish  brutali- 
ties by  admitting  that  he  had  not  received  it  from  any  trust- 
worthy authority.  |: 

How  little  could  have  been  known  of  Ireland  at  the  time 
when  Mela  wrote,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  which  he  him- 
self tells  us,  that  even  Britain  was  then,  for  the  first  time, 
about  to  be  made  known  to  her  invaders.     But  many  a  British 

*  Britannia,  qualis  sit  qualesque  progeneret,  mox  certiora  et  magis  ex- 
plorata  dicentur.  Q,uippe  tamdiu  clausam  aperit  ecce  Principum  Maximus, 
Claudius.— Z>e  Sit.  Orb.  lib.  iii. 

t  Among  others  of  these  errors,  he  represents  Ireland  so  far  to  the  north 
of  Britain,  as  to  be  almost  uninhabitable  from  extremity  of  cold. — Lib.  ii- 
As  far  as  we  have  at  present  the  means  of  judging,  his  predecessors  Era- 
tosthenes and  Pytheas  were  far  more  correctly  informed  as  to  the  geography 
of  the  western  parts  of  Europe. 

I  Kat  Tavra  6'  6i>raj  Xcyoixcv,  ws  ovk  e^ovTcg  a^iomarovi  naprvpag — Libiv. 

14* 


162  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

campaign  took  place  after  that  event,  before  Ireland  was  even 
thought  of;  and,  till  the  time  of  Agricola's  expedition,  it  was, 
to  the  Romans,  an  undiscovered  land.  With  regard  to  Solinus, 
besides  that  the  period  at  which  he  lived  seems  to  be  altoge- 
ther uncertain,  he  is  allowed,  in  general,  to  have  been  but  an 
injudicious  compiler  from  preceding  writers,  and  little  stress, 
therefore,  is  to  be  laid  on  his  authority. 

It  is,  then,  manifest,  that  all  the  evidence  derived  from 
foreign  sources,  to  prove  the  barbarous  state  of  the  Irish  before 
the  Christian  era,  must,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  authorities 
themselves,  be  considered  worthless  and  null ;  while  the  nu- 
merous testimonies  which  Ireland  still  can  produce,  in  her  na- 
tive language,  her  monuments,  her  ancient  annals  and  tradi- 
ditions,  all  concur  m  refuting  so  gross  and  gratuitous  an  as- 
sumption. Having  disposed  thus  of  the  chief,  if  not  the  only 
strong  grounds  of  one  of  the  two  conflicting  hypotheses,  to 
which  the  subject  of  Irish  antiquities  had  given  rise,  I  am  bound 
to  deal  no  less  unsparingly  with  that  other  and  far  more  agree- 
able delusion,  which  would  make  of  Ireland,  in  those  early 
ages,  a  paragon  of  civilization  and  refinement, — would  exalt 
the  splendour  of  her  Royal  Palaces,  the  romantic  deeds  of  her 
Red-Branch  Knights,  the  Celestial  Judgments  of  her  Brehons, 
and  the  high  privileges  and  functions  of  her  Bards.  That  there 
is  an  outline  of  truth  in  such  representations,  her  most  authen- 
tic records  testify ; — it  is  the  filling  up  of  this  mere  outline 
which  is,  for  the  most  part,  overcharged  and  false.  The  songs 
and  legends  of  the  country  are,  in  such  descriptions,  confound- 
ed with  her  history ;  her  fictions  have  been  taken  for  realities, 
and  her  realities  heightened  into  romance.  Those  old  laws 
and  customs  of  the  land,  so  ruinous,  as  we  have  seen,  to  peace 
and  industry,  could  not  have  been  otherwise  than  fatal  to  the 
progress  of  civilization ;  nor  can  any  one  who  follows  the  dark 
and  turbid  course  of  our  ancient  history,  through  the  unvaried 
scenes  of  turbulence  and  rapine  which  it  traverses,  suppose  for 
an  instant,  that  any  high  degree  of  general  civilization  could 
coexist  with  habits  and  practices  so  utterly  subversive  of  all 
the  elements  of  civilized  life. 

At  the  same  time,  speculating  on  the  aspect  of  Irish  society 
at  any  period  whatsoever,  full  allowance  is  to  be  made  for 
those  anomalies  wliich  so  often  occur  in  the  course  of  affairs 
in  that  country,  and  which,  in  many  instances,  baffle  all  such 
calculations  respecting  its  real  condition,  as  are  founded  on 
those  ordinary  rules  and  principles  by  which  other  countries 
.  are  judged.  Even  in  the  days  of  Ireland's  Christian  fame, 
when,  amidst  the  darkness  which  hung  over  the  rest  of  Eu- 


CONTRAST    IN    THE    NATIONAL    CHARACTER.         163 

rope,  she  stood  as  a  light  to  the  nations,  and  sent  apostles  in 
all  directions  from  her  shores, — even  in  that  distinguished  pe- 
riod of  her  history,  we  shall  find  the  same  contrasts,  the  same 
contrarieties  of  national  character,  presenting  themselves; 
insomuch  that  it  would  be  according  as  the  historical  painter 
selected  his  subjects  of  portraiture — whether  from  the  calm 
and  holy  recesses  of  Glendalough  and  Inisfallen,  or  the  rath  of 
the  rude  chief  and  the  fierce  councils  of  rebel  kings — that 
the  country  itself  would  receive  either  praise  or  reprobation, 
and  be  delineated  as  an  island  of  savages  or  of  saints. 

But  there  is  an  era  still  more  strongly  illustrative  of  this 
view  of  Irish  character,  and  at  the  same  time  recent  enough 
to  be  within  the  memory  of  numbers  still  alive.  That  it  is 
possible  for  a  state  of  things  to  exist,  wherein  some  of  the 
best  and  noblest  fruits  of  civilization  may  be  most  conspicu- 
ously displayed  in  one  portion  of  tlie  community,  while  the 
habitual  violences  of  barbarism  are,  at  the  same  time,  raging 
in  another,  is  but  too  strongly  proved  by  the  history  of  modern 
Ireland  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  eighteenth  centu- 
ry,— a  period  adorned,  it  will  hardly  be  denied,  by  as  many 
high  and  shining  names  as  ever  graced  the  meridian  of  the 
most  favoured  country,  and  yet  convulsed,  through  its  whole 
course,  by  a  furious  struggle  between  the  people  and  their 
rulers,  maintained  on  both  sides  with  a  degree  of  ferocity,  a 
reckless  violence  of  spirit, -worthy  only  of  the  most  uncivilized 
life.  Such  an  anomalous  state  of  society,  so  fresh  within  re- 
collection, might  abate,  at  least,  if  not  wholly  remove,  any 
confidence  in  the  conclusion,  that,  because  the  public  annals 
of  ancient  Ireland  leave  little  else  in  the  memory  but  a  con- 
fused chaos  of  factions  and  never-ending  feuds,  she  could  not 
therefore  have  arrived  at  a  higher  rank  in  civilization  than 
such  liabits  of  turbulence  and  lawlessness  are  usually  found  to 
indicate. 

In  the  ill  repute  of  the  ancient  Irish  for  civilization,  their 
neighbours,  the  Britons,  equally  shared ;  and  the  same  charges 
of  incest,  community  of  wives,  and  other  such  abominations, 
which  we  find  alleged  against  the  Irish,  are  brought  also 
against  the  natives  of  Britain  by  CaBsar  and  Dion  Cassius.*  It 
is  possible  that,  in  both  instances,  the  imputations  may  be  traced 

*  Uxoris  habent  deni  duodenique  inter  se  communas,  et  maxime  fratres 
cum  fratribus  parentesque  cum  liberis."— X)e  Bell.  Oal.  lib.  v.  cap.  16.  In 
referring  to  the  charges  of  these  two  historians  against  the  Britons,  Whitaker 
says,  "The  accusation  is  too  surely  as  just  as  it  is  scandalous."— ifi5«.  of 
Manchester,  book  I.  chap.  x.  sect.  5.  In  a  sermon  of  St.  Chrysostom,  quoted 
by  Camden  (Introduct.  Ixx.)  that  father  exclaims,  "  How  often  in  Britain  did 
men  eat  the  flesh  of  their  own  kind!" 


164  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

to  that  policy  of  the  commercial  nations  of  antiquity  which 
led  them  to  impute  all  manner  of  atrocities  and  horrors  to  the 
inhabitants  of  places  where  they  had  established  a  profitable 
commerce.*  We  have  seen  with  what  jealous  care  the  Phoe- 
nician merchants,  and  subsequently,  also,  the  Carthaginians 
and  Greeks,  endeavoured  to  turn  the  attention  of  the  world 
from  their  trade  with  the  British  Isles,  so  as  to  prevent  all 
commercial  rivals  from  interfering  with  their  monopoly.  A 
part  of  this  policy  it  may  have,  perhaps,  been  to  represent  the 
Irish  as  brutes  and  cannibals,  and  their  neighbours  the  Britons 
as  little  better  ;  and  the  traders  who  crowded  the  ports  of  the 
former  island  in  the  first  century  would  be  sure  to  encourage 
the  same  notion.  So  well  and  long  did  these  traditional  stig- 
mas adhere,  that  the  poet  Ausonius,  in  the  fourth  century,  pro- 
nounces the  appellation  Briton  to  be  then  synonymous  with  that 
of  bad  or  wicked  manf ;  and  about  the  same  period, — not  many 
years  previously  to  the  great  naval  expedition  of  the  Irish 
monarch,  Niul  Giallach,  against  the  coasts  of  Britain, — we 
find  St.  Jerome  gravely  describing  an  exhibition  which  he  had 
himself  witnessed  in  his  youth,  in  Gaul,  of  some  cannibal 
Scots,  or  Irishmen,  regaling  themselves  upon  human  flesh.| 

Much  the  same  sort  of  inconsistencies  and  contradictions  as 
are  found  to  embarrass  and  render  difficult  any  attempt  to  esti- 
mate the  social  and  moral  condition  of  the  ancient  Irish,  will 
be  found  also  in  the  facts  illustrative  of  their  state  of  advance- 
ment in  those  arts,  inventions,  and  contrivances,  which  are  the 
invariable  results  of  civilized  life.  That,  so  early  as  the  first 
century,  their  harbours  were  much  resorted  to  by  navigators 
and  merchants,  the  authority  of  Tacitus  leaves  us  no  room  to 
doubt;  and  their  enjoyment  of  a  foreign  trade  maybe  even 
referred  to  a  much  remoter  period,  as  we  find  Ptolemy,  in  cit- 
ing testimony  of  one  of  those  more  ancient  geographers,  from 
whom  his  own  materials  on  the  subject  of  Ireland  are  mostly 
derived,  remarking,  among  his  other  claims,  to  credibility,  his 
having  rejected  all  such  accounts  of  that  country  as  were 

*  111  the  opinion  of  Pownal,  this  policy  of  the  ancients,  in  "  keeping  people 
awav  from  their  possessions,"  will  account  for  the  tales  of  the  Anthropophagi, 
the  Syrens,  and  all  the  other  "  nietamorphosic  fables,  turning  policied  and 
commercial  people  into  horrid  and  savage  monsters." 

t  Aut  Brito  hie  non  est  Silvius,  aut  malus  est.—Epig.  110 

This  poet  has  a  whole  string  of  pointless  epigrams  on  the  same  quibble. 
Cellarius,  in  quoting  one  of  them,  says,  "  Male  iljo  tempore  Britanni  audie- 
bant :"  ideo,  epigrammate  112,—"  Nemo  bonus  Brito  est." 

J  duid  loquar  de  ceteris  nationibus  cum  ipse  adolescentulus  in  Gallia  vi- 
derim  Scolos,  gentem  Britannicam,  humanis  vesci  carnibus."— 5'.  Hieron. 
contra  Jovinian,  lib.  ii 


ADVANCEMENT    IN    THE    ARTS,  ETC.  165 

gathered  from  merchants  who  had  visited  her  ports  with  a 
view  to  traffic  alone.* 

Notwithstanding  this  clear  and  authentic  evidence  of  her 
having  been,  not  merely  in  the  first  century,  but  in  times  pre- 
ceding our  era,  in  possession  of  a  foreign  commerce,  it  appears 
equally  certain  that  neither  then,  nor  for  many  ages  after,  had 
the  interior  trade  of  the  country  advanced  beyond  the  rude 
stages  of  barter;  nor  had  coined  money,  that  indispensable 
ingredient  of  civilized  lifef,  been  yet  brought  into  use.  It  is 
true,  both  O'Flaherty  and  Keating  tell  us  of  a  coinage  of  sil- 
ver in  the  reign  of  the  monarch  Eadna  Dearg,  no  less  than  466 
years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  at  a  place  called  Argeatre,  as 
they  say,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Suir,  in  Ossory.  But  it  is 
plain  that  the  name  here,  as  in  many  other  such  traditions, 
was  the  sole  foundation  of  the  fable, — etymology  having  been, 
in  all  countries,  one  of  the  most  fertile  sources  of  fiction  and 
conjecture.|  Equally  groundless  may  be  pronounced  the  ac- 
count given  by  Keating  of  mints  erected  and  money  coined 
for  the  service  of  the  state,  about  the  time  of  the  commence- 
ment of  St.  Patrick's  apostleship.  It  is  certain  that,  for  many 
centuries  after  this  period,  the  custom  of  paying  gold  by  the 
weight  may  be  traced  ;  and  so  long  did  cattle,  according  to  the 
primitive  meaning  of  the  term  pecunia,  continue  to  be  the 
measure  of  value,  that,  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  celebrated  Book  of  Ballymote^  (a  compila- 
tion from  the  works  of  some  earlier  Irish  seanachies),  was  pur- 
chased by  a  certain  Hugh  O'Donnel  for  140  milch  cows ; — 
a  transaction  combining  in  itself,  rather  curiously,  at  once  the 
high  estimation  of  literary  merit  which  marks  an  advanced 
state  of  society,  and  a  mode  of  payment  belonging  only  to  its 
very  earliest  ages. 

While  in  their  home  commerce  such  evidence  of  backward- 
ness presents  itself,  their  means  of  carrying  on  a  foreign  trade 

*  Thus,  in  the  Latin  version  of  Ptolemy :— "  Atqui  et  ipse  Marinus  Tyrius 
mercatorum  relalionibus  nequaquam  fidem  adliibere  videtur.  Itaque  Philc- 
monis  sermoni  longitudinem  Insula  Hiberniae  ab  ortu  occasum  usque  xx. 
dierum  esse  tradenti  haudquaquam  adstipulatur,  dicens  hoc  eos  a  mercato- 
ribus  percepisse,  hos  enini  ait  veritatis  in  derogationem  haud  curari,  intentos 
mercimoniis."— Gco^.  lib.  ii.  c.  11. 

t  "  Soyez  seul,  et  arrivez,  par  quelque  accident,  chez  un  peuple  inconnu,  si 
vous  voyez  une  piece  de  monnoie,  comptez  que  vous  etes  arrive  chez  une  na- 
tion poVicee."— Montesquieu,  1.  xviii.  c.  15. 

X  By  the  same  ready  process,  another  Irish  monarch,  Acpy  Fuarchis,  who 
reigned  a.  m.  3308,  was  made  the  inventor  of  Currachs,  or  wicker  boats ;  his 
name,  Fuarchis,  signifying  a  boat  not  well  joined.— O^y.  part  iii.  chap.  34. 

§  For  an  account  of  the  origin  and  transmission  of  this  celebrated  Book  of 
Records,  which  was  chiefly  compiled  by  Solomon  O'Drum,  see  Trans.  Iberno- 
Celt.  Society. 


166  HISTORY    OF    IIIELAND. 

appear  to  have  been  equally  limited.  For  any  distance  beyond 
their  own  and  the  immediately  neighbouring-  coasts,  the  re- 
sources of  their  navigation  were  but  rude  and  insecure,  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  those  large,  open  boats,  called  Currachs, 
which,  like  the  light  vessels  of  osier  and  leather  used  by  the 
ancient  Liburnians,  were  composed  of  a  frame-work  of  wood 
and  wicker,  covered  over  with  the  skins  of  cattle  or  of  deer. 
These  boats,  though  in  general  navigated  by  oars,  were  capable 
of  occasionally  carrying  masts  and  sails, — the  latter  being,  like 
those  of  the  Veneti,  formed  of  hides.  There  was  also  in  use, 
among  the  Irish,  for  plying  upon  the  rivers  and  lakes,  small 
canoes,  made  out  of  trees ;  and  it  must  have  been  of  this  sort 
of  rude  craft  that  Giraldus  spoke,  when  he  said  that  the  tail  of 
a  live  salmon  could  upset  them.*  That  the  currachs  were 
considered  to  a  certain  degree  seaworthy,  may  be  judged  from 
the  expeditions  in  which  they  were  sometimes  employed.  It 
was  in  a  skiff  of  this  kind,  described  by  Columba's  biographer 
as  furnished  with  sails,  that  St.  Cormac  is  said  to  have  more 
then  once  ventured  fortli  in  quest  of  some  lonely  isle  in  the 
ocean  where  he  miglit  fix  his  retreatf ;  and  in  one  of  these 
exploratory  cruises  he  was  out  of  sight  of  land,  we  are  told, 
for  fourteen  days  and  nights.  | 

It  is  among  the  many  remarkable  proofs  of  that  identity  of 
character  and  customs  which  the  Irish  preserved  through  so 
many  ages,  that,  so  far  back  as  the  time  when  Himilco  visited 
these  seas,  the  very  same  sort  of  boats  were  in  use  among  the 
natives;  and  that  the  holy  men  of  the  "Sacred  Island"  were 
tlien  seen  passmg,  in  their  hide -covered  barks,  from  shore  to 
shore,  in  the  very  same  manner  as  was  practised  by  her  saints 
and  missionaries  more  than  a  thousand  years  after,  § 

A  reverend  historian  cited  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work, 
has  described,  as  we  have  seen,  with  much  pomp  and  circum- 
stance, the  fleet  of  the  Irish  monarch,  Nial  Giallach,  with  the 
shield  of  the  admiral  at  the  mast-head,  the  rowers  chiming 
their  oars  to  the  music  of  the  harp,  and  other  such  probable 

*  Giraldus  speaks  more  particularly  of  the  British  ciirrach.—{Descript. 
Camb.)    "  Cum  autem  naviculam  salmo  injectus  cauda  fortiter  percusserit 
non  absque  periculo  plerumque  vecturam  priter  et  vectorem  evertit." 
t  Eremum  in  oceano  quarere. 

X  Nam  cum  ejus  navis  a  torris  per  quatuordecem  ffistei  temporis  dies  toti- 
demque  noctes,  plenis  velis  Austro  flante  vento,  ad  septentrionalis  plagan 
caeli  directo  excurrere  cuTsu.—^damnan.  De.  S.  Columh.  Abbate  Hiensi. 
§  Sed  rei  ad  miraculum 

Navigia  junctis  semper  aptant  pellibus, 
Corioque  vastum  saepe  percurrent  salum. 

Fest.  Jivien.    Ora  Maritim. 


bTATE    or    ARCIllTLCTUKE.  167 

appurtenances.  On  the  same  poetical  authority  from  whence 
this  description  is  derived,  we  are  told  by  another  writer  of 
the  names  given  by  the  Irish  mariners  to  particular  stars,  by 
whose  light  they  were  accustomed  to  steer  in  their  voyages, — 
such  as  the  Guide  to  Erin,  the  Guide  to  Scandinavia,  the  Guide 
of  Night.*  Such  false  pictures  of  manners,  put  forth  in  grave 
works,  and  on  such  authority  as  that  of  Ossian,  are  little  less 
than  deliberate  insults  on  a  reader. 

To  the  facts  above  stated,  as  apparently  inconsistent  with 
the  notion  of  the  Irish  having  been,  in  those  times,  a  trading 
people,  may  be  opposed,  on  the  other  side,  the  actual  traces 
still  remaining  of  ancient  causeways  and  roads  throughout  the 
country.f  One  great  commercial  road,  having  walls,  we  are 
told,  on  each  side,  strengthened  with  redoubts,  was  carried  from 
Galway  along  the  south  boundaries  of  the  people  called  an- 
ciently the  Auteri,  and  along,  by  the  borders  of  the  counties 
of  Meath  and  Leinster,  to  Dublin.|  If  the  conjecture  of  Whita- 
ker,  too,  be  adopted,  that  the  great  road,  called  the  Watling 
Street,  extending  from  Dover,  through  London,  as  far  as 
Anglesey  in  Wales,  was  originally  denominated,  by  the  an- 
cient Britons,  the  Way  of  the  Irish,  it  is  equally  probable  that 
the  causeway  from  Galway  to  Dublin  formed  a  part  of  the 
same  line  of  conveyance ;  and  that  articles  of  commerce  from 
the  western  and  central  parts  of  Ireland  may  have  been,  by 
this  route,  transmitted  through  Britain,  and  into  Gaul. 

Among  the  tests  by  which  the  civilization  of  a  people  may 
be  judged,  their  degree  of  advancement  in  the  art  of  archi- 
tecture is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  least  fallible ;  but  here  again 
the  historian  is  encountered  by  the  same  contrasts  and  incon- 
sistencies,— not  merely  between  tradition  and  existing  visible 
evidence,  but  also  between  the  several  remaining  monuments 
themselves,  of  which  some  bespeak  all  the  rudeness  of  an  in- 
fant state  of  society,  while  others  point  to  a  far  different  origin, 
and  stand  as  marks  of  a  tide  of  civilization  long  since  ebbed 
away.  In  tlie  geography  of  Ptolemy,  we  find  a  number  of 
Irish  cities  enumerated,  on  some  of  which  he  even  bestows 
the  epithet  illustrious,  or  distinguished^ ;  and  intimates  that, 
in  two  of  them,  the  cities  Hybernis  and  Rheba,  celestial  obser- 

*  Armstrong's  Gaelic  Dictionary. 

t  See  Brewer,  Introduct.,  for  remarks  on  the  vestiges  of  "  ecclesiastical 
and  commercial  paved  roads  still  observable  in  several  parts  of  Ireland." 
"  These  public  ways,"  he  adds,  "  appear  to  have  led  from  such  sea-ports  aa 
were  formerly  of  principal  consideration  to  the  interior  of  the  country." 

X  Wood,  Primitive  Origin  of  the  Irish,  p.  96. 

§  TrjS  ^£  lovEpvias  vticy  al  ciriarjixoi  t:o\ei^. 


168  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

vations  had  been  made.  But  though  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
probable that,  in  the  time  of  those  more  ancient  geographers 
from  whom  Ptolemy  is  known  to  have  drawn  his  materials, 
such  cities  may  have  existed,  his  testimony  on  this  point  is  to 
be  received  with  some  caution ;  as  in  Germany,  where,  at  the 
time  when  Tacitus  wrote,  no  other  habitations  were  known 
than  detached  huts  and  caves,  this  geographer,  who  published 
his  work  but  about  half  a  century  later,  has  contrived  to  conjure 
up  no  less  than  ninety  cities.  In  the  same  manner,  any  in- 
ference that  might  be  drawn  in  favour  of  the  civilization  of 
Ireland,  from  the  supposition  that  those  observations  of  the 
length  of  the  solstitial  days,  by  which  the  latitudes  of  the  Irish 
cities  were  determined,  had  been  really  taken  in  those  cities 
themselves,  would  prove,  most  probably,  fallacious;  as  it  is 
supposed  that  but  few  of  the  latitudes  given  by  Ptolemy  were 
the  result  of  actual  astronomical  observation,* 

Of  those  ancient  Raths,  or  Hill-fortresses,  which  formed  the 
dwellings  of  the  old  Irish  chiefs,  and  belonged  evidently  to  a 
period  when  cities  were  not  yet  in  existence,  there  are  to  be 
found  numerous  remains  throughout  the  country.  This  species 
of  earthen  work  is  distinguished  from  the  artificial  mounds,  or 
tumuli,  by  its  being  formed  upon  natural  elevations,  and  al- 
ways surrounded  by  a  rampart.  Within  the  area  thus  inclosed, 
which  was  called  the  Rath,  stood  the  habitations  of  the  chief- 
tain and  his  family,  whicli  were,  in  general,  small  buildings 
constructed  of  earth  and  hurdles,  or  having,  in  some  instances, 
walls  of  wood  upon  a  foundation  of  earth.  In  outward  shape, 
as  I  have  said,  these  dwellings  of  the  living  resembled  those 
mounds  which  the  Irish  raised  over  their  dead ;  and  it  is  con- 
jectured of  the  ancient  earthen  works  on  the  Curragh  of  Kil- 
dare,  that  while  the  larger  rath  was  the  dwelling  of  the  ancient 
chieftains  of  that  district,  the  small  entrenchments  formed 
their  cemetry  or  burial-place.  If  thus  uncivilized  were  the 
habitations  of  the  great  dynasts  of  those  days,  it  may  be  im- 
agined what  were  the  abodes  of  the  humbler  classes  of  the 
community; — though  here,  unfortunately,  the  imagination  is 
not  called  upon  for  any  effort ;  as,  in  the  cottier's  cabin  of  the 
present  day,  the  disgraceful  reality  still  exists;  and  two  thou- 
sand years  have  passed  over  the  hovel  of  the  Irish  pauper  in  vain. 

♦  "  Q,uant  a  la  durte  du  jour  solstitial,  nous  avons  deja  dit,  et  nous  verrons 
occasion  de  prouver  encore,  que  la  tres  grande  partie  de  ces  especes  de  deter- 
minations contenues  dans  le  huitieme  livre  de  Ptol6mt;e  n'6toit  le  r^sultat 
d'aucune  observation  astronomique,  et  qu'elle  n'etoit  conclue  que  d'apres  les 
latitudes  adoptees  de  son  tems  ;  ainsi  on  ne  pent  leur  accorder  aucune  con- 
fiance  quand  eWen  ne  sont  pas  apuy^es  sur  le  t6moignage  de  quelques  autrea 
6crivains." — Oosselin,  Recherches  sur  la  Oiographie  des  Anciens. 


ANCIENT    DWELLINGS.  169 

A  degree  still  lower,  however,  on  the  scale  of  comfort,  would 
have  been  the  lot  of  the  ancient  Irish,  were  it  true,  as  Led- 
wicli  and  others  have  asserted,  that  they  lived  chiefly,  in  the 
manner  of  the  Troglodytes,  in  subterranean  caves.  That  some 
of  those  caverns,  of  which  so  great  a  number,  both  artificial 
and  natural,  have  been  discovered  throughout  Ireland,  may 
have  been  used  as  places  of  refuge  for  the  women  and  children 
during  times  of  danger  and  invasion,  appears  to  be  highly  pro- 
bable. We  find  some  of  them  described  as  divided  into  apart- 
ments, and  even  denoting  an  attempt  at  elegance  in  their 
construction.  They  have  also  sometimes  sustaining  walls  of 
dry  stone- work,  to  confine  the  sides  and  support  the  flags  which 
form  the  ceiling.  But  though  they  are  pronounced  to  have 
been  evidently  subterranean  houses,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
human  beings  reduced  to  such  abodes.* 

It  was  among  a  people  thus  little  removed  from  the  state  of 
the  Germans  in  the  time  of  Tacitus,  that  the  Palaces  of  Tara 
and  Emania,  as  authentic  records  leave  us  but  little  room  to 
doubt,  displayed  their  regal  halls,  and,  however  scepticism  may 
now  question  their  architectural  merits,  could  boast  the  admi- 
ration of  many  a  century  in  evidence  of  their  grandeur.  That 
these  edifices  were  merely  of  wood  is  by  no  means  conclusive 
either  against  the  elegance  of  their  structure,  or  the  civiliza- 
tion, to  a  certain  degree,  of  those  who  erected  them.  It  was 
in  wood  that  the  graceful  forms  of  Grecian  architecture  first 
unfolded  their  beauty ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  at 
the  time  when  Xerxes  invaded  Greece,  most  of  her  temples 
were  still  of  this  perishable  material. 

Not  to  lay  too  much  stress,  however,  on  these  boasted  struc- 
tures of  ancient  Ireland,  of  which  there  is  but  dry  and  meagre 
mention  by  her  annalists,  and  most  hyperbolical  descriptions 
by  her  bards,  there  needs  no  more  striking  illustration  of  the 
strong  contrasts  which  her  antiquities  present,  than  that,  in  the 
very  neighbourhood  of  the  earthen  rath  and  the  cave,  there 
should  rise  proudly  aloft  those  wonderful  Round  Towers,  be- 
speaking, in  their  workmanship  and  presumed  purposes,  a  con- 
nexion with  religion  and  science,  which  marks  their  builders 

*  "  Some  of  them  are  excavated  into  the  hard  gravel,  with  the  flags  resting 
on  no  other  support ;  and  so  low  that  you  can  only  sit  erect  in  them  ;  that 
is,  from  three  to  four  feet  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling.  I  have  not  seen  any 
hij?her  than  four  feet The  tradition  of  the  country  makes  them  gra- 
naries; but  for  granaries  they  could  never  have  been  intended,  as  it  would 
have  been  very  difficult  to  convey  grain  into  them,  through  long  and  narrow 
passages,  not  more  than  two  feet  square." — Description  of  a  remarkable 
Building,  SfC,  by  F.  C.  Bland,  Trans.  R.  Irish  Jjcad.,  vol.  xiv. 

See,  for  similar  "  hiding-pits,"  as^he  calls  them,  among  the  Britons,  King, 
Muniment.  Antiq.  book  i.  chap.  1, 

Vol.  I.  15 


170  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

to  have  been  of  a  race  advanced  in  civilization  and  knowledge, 
— a  race  different,  it  is  clear,  from  any  of  those  who  are  known, 
from  time  to  time,  to  have  established  themselves  in  the  coun- 
try, and,  therefore,  most  probably,  the  old  aboriginal  inhabit- 
ants, in  days  when  the  arts  were  not  yet  strangers  on  their 
shores. 

There  are  yet  a  few  other  facts,  strongly  illustrative  of  this 
peculiar  view  of  our  antiquities,  to  which  it  may  be  worth  while 
briefly  to  advert.  Respectmg  the  dress  of  the  ancient  Irish, 
we  have  no  satisfactory  information.  In  an  account  given  of 
them  by  a  Roman  writer  of  the  third  century,  they  are  repre- 
sented as  being  half  naked* ;  and  the  Briton  Gildas,  who  wrote 
about  three  hundred  years  after,  has  drawn  much  the  same 
picture  of  them.f  It  was  only  in  battle,  however,  that  they 
appear  to  have  presented  themselves  in  this  barbarian  fashion ; 
and  a  similar  custom  prevailed  also  among  the  ancient  Britons 
and  Picts.  But,  though  no  particulars  of  the  dress  of  the  Irish, 
in  those  remote  times,  have  reached  us,  enough  may  be  col- 
lected from  the  accounts  of  a  later  period,  when  they  had 
become  more  known  to  Europe,  to  satisfy  us  that  the  Milesian 
lord  of  the  rath  and  the  plebeian  of  the  hovel  had  as  little 
advanced  on  the  scale  of  civilization  in  their  dress  as  in  their 
dwellings ;  and  that,  while  the  latter  was  most  probably 
clothed,  like  the  lower  order  of  Britons,  in  sheepskin,  the  chief 
himself  wore  the  short  woollen  mantle,  such  as  was  custom- 
ary, at  a  later  period,  among  his  countrymen,  and  which,  ac- 
cording to  some  authorities,  reached  no  further  than  the  elbows; 
leaving,  like  the  Rheno,  or  short  mantle  of  the  ancient  Ger- 
mansj:,  the  remainder  of  the  body  entirely  naked.  There  is 
reason  to  believe,  however,  that  at  that  time,  as  well  as  subse- 
quently, they  may  have  worn  coverings  for  the  thighs  and  legs, 
or,  at  least,  that  sort  of  petticoat,  or  fallin.,  as  it  was  called, 
which  is  known  to  have  been  worn,  as  well  as  the  braccse,  by 
the  Irish,  in  the  time  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis.^ 

*  Adhuc  semi-nudi.— £u7rec7t.  Panegyric.  Vet. 

t  Magis  VTiltus  piliB  quam  corporum  pudenda,  pudendisque  proxima,  ves- 
libus  tegentes.— GiWas. 

i  Pellibus  aut  parvis  rhenonum  tegimentis  utuntur,  magna  corporis  parte 
nnAa.—  Cces.  de  Bell.  Gall.  1.  vi.  c.  21. 

§  In  their  dress,  as  well  as  in  most  other  respects,  to  attempt  to  distinguish 
very  definitely  between  Celts  and  Teutons  will  be  found  a  vain  and  fallacious 
task.  We  have  seen  that  the  Irish  and  Gaulish  Celts  were  fond  of  variegated 
dresses  ;  and  so,  it  appears,  were  the  Lombards  and  Anglo-Saxons.  "  Vesti- 
menta  (says  Diaconus,  1.  iv.  c.  7.),  qualia  AngliSaxones  habere  solent,  ornata 
institis  latioribus,  vario  colore  contextis."  The  braccae  of  the  Irish  were, 
like  those  of  the  Germans,  tight,  while  the  Sarmatians  and  Batavians  pre- 
ferred them  large  and  loose. 

"  Et  qui  te  laxis  imitantur,  Sarmata,  braccis 
Vangiones,  Batavique  truces."  Lucan,  1.  i.  430. 


COSTLY    REMAIIVS.  171 

Such  having  been  the  rude  state  of  the  ancient  Irish,  within 
any  range  of  time  to  which  our  knowledge  of  them  extends,  it 
remains  to  be  asked,  to  whom  then,  to  what  race  or  period, 
could  have  belonged  those  relics  of  an  age  of  comparative  re- 
finement, those  curious  and  costly  ornaments  of  dress,  some  of 
the  purest  gold,  elaborately  wrought,  and  others  of  silver,  which 
have  been  discovered,  from  time  to  time,  in  diiferent  parts  of 
Ireland,  having  been  dug  up  out  of  fields  and  bogs  where  they 
must  have  lain  hidden  for  ages  ]*  Nor  is  it  only  of  ornaments 
for  the  person  that  these  precious  remains  consist ;  as  there 
are  found  also  among  them  instruments  supposed  to  have  been 
connected  with  religious  worship,  which  are  said  to  be  of  the 
finest  gold,  without  any  alloy,  and  to  have,  some  of  them,  han- 
dles of  silver,  chased  with  plated  gold.f  In  like  manner,  a 
variety  of  swords  and  other  weapons^  have  been  discovered, 
the  former  of  which  would  seem  to  have  been  fabricated  before 
iron  had  been  brought  into  use  for  such  purposes,  as  they  are 
all  of  a  mixed  metal,  chiefly  copper,  admitting  of  a  remarkably 
high  polish,  and  of  a  temper  to  carry  a  very  sharp  edge. 

To  attempt  to  reconcile, — even  on  the  grounds  already  sug- 
gested, of  the  anomalous  character  of  the  people, — the  civilized 
tastes,  the  skill  in  metallurgy,  the  forms  of  worship,  which 
these  various  articles,  in  their  several  uses,  imply,  with  such  a 
state  of  things  as  prevailed  in  Ireland  during  the  first  ages  of 

*  "  Within  the  limits  of  ray  own  knowledge,"  says  the  Rev.  W.  Hamilton, 
"  golden  ornaments  liave  been  found  to  the  amount  of  near  one  thousand 
pounds." — Letters  concerning  the  Coast  of  Antrim. 

The  superior  richness  of  the  urns  and  ornaments  discovered  in  Ireland, 
compared  with  those  found  in  the  English  barrows,  is  fully  acknowledged  by 
Sir  Richard  Hoare.  "  The  Irish  urns  were,"  he  says,  "  in  general,  more  or- 
namented," and  the  articles  of  gold,  also,  "  richer  and  more  numerous,"— 
Tour  in  Ireland,  General  Remarks. 

t  See  Gough's  Camden,  vol.  iv.  Collectan.  Hibern.  vol.  iv.  Among  other 
curious  Irish  remains,  bishop  Pococke  produced  to  the  Antiquarian  Society  a 
bracelet,  or  armilla,  of  fine  gold.  See  drawing  of  this  and  a  gold  bracelet  in 
Gough,  vol.  iv.  pi.  14.  Also  plate  12.  for  some  curious  instruments,  supposed 
by  Pococke  to  be  fibulae,  while  Simon  and  Vallancey  are  both  of  opinion  that 
they  were  patera;,  used  by  the  ancient  Druids.  Among  the  most  beautiful  of 
the  ornaments  discovered  in  Ireland  have  been  those  golden  torques  or  collars, 
supposed  to  have  been  worn  by  the  Irish  Druids,  as,  according  to  Strabo,  they 
were  by  the  Gauls.  One  of  these,  of  delicate  workmanship,  and  of  the  purest 
gold,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne. 

I  "  One  circumstance  as  to  the  swords  seems  to  be  decisive  : — they  are  aa 
exactly  and  as  minutely  to  every  apparent  mark  the  same  with  the  swords 
of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  collection,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  as  if  they  came 
out  of  the  same  armoury.  The  former  found  in  the  field  of  Cannae  are  said 
to  be  Carthaginian  ;  these,  therefore,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  may  likewise 
be  said  to  have  been  of  the  same  people."  Qovernor  PownaVs  Account  of 
some  Irish  Antiquities  to  the  Society  of  Antiquarians,  1774.  "  What  makes 
these  brazen  swords  such  a  valuable  remnant  to  the  Irish  antiquarian  is, 
they  serve  to  corroborate  the  opinion  that  the  Phoenicians  once  had  footing 
n  this  kingdom."— Ca7np&e«'s  Philosoph.  Survey  of  the  South  of  Ireland. 


172  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Christianity,  appears  altogether  impossible  ;  and  the  sole  solu- 
tion of  this  and  other  such  contradictions,  in  the  ancient  history 
of  the  Irish,  is  that,  at  the  time  when  they  first  became  known 
to  the  rest  of  Europe,  they  had  been  long  retrograding  in  civi- 
lization ;  that,  whether  from  the  inroads  of  rude  northern 
tribes,  or  the  slowly  demoralizing  effects  of  their  own  political 
institutions,  they  had  fallen,  like  many  other  once  civilized 
nations,  into  eclipse ;  and  though,  with  true  Celtic  persever- 
ance, still  clinging  to  their  old  laws  and  usages,  their  Assem- 
blies at  Tara,  their  Colleges  of  Bards,  the  Great  Psalter  of 
their  Antiquaries,  yet  preserving  of  the  ancient  fabric  little 
more  than  the  shell,  and,  amidst  all  these  skeletons  of  a  bygone 
civilization,  sinking  fast  into  barbarism.  This  view  of  the 
matter  seems  also  remarkably  confirmed  by  that  interval  of 
ignorance,  and  even  oblivion,  as  to  the  state  and  fortunes  of 
Ireland,  which  succeeded  to  the  times  of  the  geographer  Py- 
theas,  of  Eratosthenes,  and  the  Tyrian  authorities  of  Ptolemy. 
By  all  these,  and  more  especially  the  latter,  the  position  and 
localities  of  that  island  appear  to  have  been  far  better  known 
than  by  Strabo  or  any  of  tlie  later  Greek  authorities*, — a  cir- 
cumstance to  be  explained  only  by  the  supposition  that  those 
ties  of  intercourse,  whether  commercial  or  religious,  which  the 
Irish  once  maintained,  it  is  clear,  with  other  nations,  had  during 
this  interval  been  interrupted,  and  all  the  light  that  had  flowed 
from  those  sources  withdrawn.  Through  a  nearly  similar 
course  of  retrogradation  we  shall  find  them  again  doomed  to 
pass,  after  their  long  and  dark  suffering  under  the  yoke  of  the 
Danes,  when,  exhausted  not  more  by  this  scourge  than  by  their 
own  internal  dissensions,  they  sunk  from  the  eminent  station 
they  had  so  long  held  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  fell  helplessly 
into  that  state  of  abasement,  and  almost  barbarism,  in  which 
their  handful  of  English  conquerors  found  them. 

In  the  state  of  society  which  prevailed  in  Ireland,  in  the 
middle  ages,  when  it  differed  but  little,  probably,  from  that  of 
the  period  we  are  now  considering,  an  eminent  historian  has 
discovered  some  points  of  resemblance  to  the  picture  represent- 
ed to  us  of  the  Homeric  age  of  Greecef ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  style  of  living,  as  described  by  Homer,  in  the  palace  of 
Ulysses,  the  riot  and  revel  in  the  great  hall,  which  was  the 

*  Pytheam  prseterea  increpat  Strabo  ut  mendac6m,  qui  Hiberniam  ac  Uxi- 
samam  (Ushant)  ad  occidentem  ponit  a  Gallia,  cum  hoec  omnia,  ait,  ad  Septen- 
trionem  vergant.  Itaque  veteres  geographi  Hibernise  situm  definiunt  melius 
quam  scriptores  seculi  aurei  Augusti,  Himilco  et  riicenices  melius  quam 
Graci  vel  Romani  \—Rer.  Script.  Hib.  prol.  i.  xii. 

t  Mitford,  History  of  Greece,  vol.  i.  chap. . 


THE  BALLYCASTLE  COAL-MINES.  173 

w^ene  of  the  cooking  as  well  as  of  the  feasting, — the  supposed 
beggar  admitted  of  the  party,  and,  not  least,  the  dunghill  lying 
in  the  path  from  the  court-gate  to  the  hall  door*,  might  all  find 
a  parallel  in  the  mansions  of  Irish  chieftains,  even  to  a  later 
period  than  that  assigned  by  the  historian. 

Among  the  numerous  other  vestiges  still  remaining  of  an 
age  of  civilization  in  Ireland,  far  anterior  to  any  perioid  with 
which  her  history  makes  us  acquainted,  should  not  be  forgotten 
those  extraordinary  coal-works  at  Ballycastle,  on  the  coast  of 
Antrim,  which  are  pronounced  to  have  been  wrought  in  times 
beyond  even  the  reach  of  traditionf,  and  which  a  writer,  by  no 
means  indulgent  to  the  claims  of  Irish  antiquities,  conjectures, 
from  the  "  marks  of  ancient  operations"  which  they  exhibit, 
to  have  been  the  work  of  some  of  the  very  earliest  colonists 
of  the  country 4  The  last  resource  with  certain  theorists,  re- 
specting our  antiquities,  is  to  attribute  all  such  works  to  the 
Danes ;  and  to  this  people  the  ancient  coal- works  of  Ballycastle, 
as  well  as  all  the  other  mine  excavations  throughout  Ireland, 
have  been  assigned.  But  the  scanty  grounds  assumed  for  such 
a  conjecture,  and  the  utter  improbability  that  a  people,  harass- 
ed as  were  the  Danes,  and  never,  at  any  period,  in  peaceable 
possession  of  the  country,  should  have  found  time  for  such 
slow  and  laborious  operations  of  peace,  has  been  already  by  va- 
rious writers  convincingly  demonstrated. 

Postponing  the  consideration  of  some  other  usages  and  cha- 
racteristics of  the  Pagan  Irish  to  a  somewhat  later  period, 

*  Odyss.  lib.  vii. 

t  "  The  antiquity  of  this  work  is  pretty  evident  from  hence,  that  there 
does  not  remain  the  most  remote  tradition  of  it  in  the  country ;  but  it  is 
still  more  strongly  demonstrated  from  a  natural  process  which  has  taken 
place  since  its  formation  ;  for  the  sides  and  pillars  were  found  covered  with 
sparry  incrustations,  which  the  present  workmen  do  not  observe  to  be  depo- 
sited in  any  definite  portion  of  time."— Rev.  W.  Hamilton' s  Letters  concerning 
the  Coast  of  Jlntrim. 

X  •'  The  superior  intelligence  of  this  people  (the  Damnii  or  Danaans)  and 
of  the  Clanna  Rhoboig,  considered  with  Tacitus's  account  of  the  trade  of 
Ireland,  induce  me  to  suppose  that  the  coal-works  at  Ballycastle,  on  the 
northern  coast,  which  exhibit  marks  of  ancient  operations,  had  been  worked 
by  either  or  both."— Wood's  Inquiry  into  the  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Ireland. 

The  following  evidence  on  this  subject  is  worthy  of  attention :— "  If  we 
may  judge  from  tiie  number  of  ancient  mine  excavations  which  are  stilt 
visible  in  almost  every  part  of  Ireland,  it  would  appear  that  an  ardent  spirit 
for  mining  adventure  must  have  pervaded  this  country  at  some  very  remote 
period.  In  many  cases,  no  tradition  that  can  be  depended  upon  now  remains 
of  the  time  or  people  by  whom  the  greater  part  of  these  works  were  originally 
commenced."  This  experienced  engineer  adds:—"  It  is  worthy  of  remark, 
that  many  of  our  mining  excavations  exhibit  appearances  similar  to  the 
surface-workings  of  the  most  ancient  mines  in  Cornwall,  which  are  generally 
attributed  to  the  Phoenicians."— iZeporf  to  the  Royal  Dublin  Society,  on  the 
Metallic  Mines  of  Lcinster,  in  1828,  by  Richard  Griffith,  Esq. 

15* 


174  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

when,  remaining  still  unchanged,  the  materials  for  illustrating 
them  will  be  found  more  ample  and  authentic,  I  shall  here  only 
advert  to  one  or  two  points  connected  with  their  knowledge  of 
the  useftil  arts  and  manner  of  living,  respecting  which  inform- 
ation, however  scanty,  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  the 
ancients.  Those  who  regard  Mela  as  sufficient  authority  for 
the  barbarous  habits  of  the  people,  will  not,  of  course,  reject 
his  evidence  as  to  the  exercise  among  them  of  agriculture  and 
grazing : — "  The  climate  of  Iverna,"  says  this  geographer,  "  is 
unfavourable  to  the  ripening  of  seeds ;  but  so  luxuriant  in  pas- 
ture, not  only  plenteous,  but  sweet,  that  the  cattle  fill  them- 
selves in  but  a  small  part  of  the  day,  and,  unless  restrained 
from  the  pasture,  would  burst  by  over-eating."* 

Another  favourite  witness  of  the  anti-Irish  school,  Solinus, 
thus  speaks  of  the  military  weapons  of  the  old  natives : — 
"  Those  among  them  who  study  ornament,  are  in  the  habit  of 
adorning  the  hilts  of  their  swords  with  the  teeth  of  sea-ani- 
mals, which  they  burnish  to  the  whiteness  of  ivory ;  for  the 
chief  glory  of  those  people  lies  in  their  arms."t 

We  have  already  seen  that  numbers  of  swords,  made  of  brass, 
have  been  found  in  different  parts  of  the  country  ;  and  of  these 
some  are  averred  to  be  exactly  of  the  same  description  with 
the  swords  found  on  the  field  of  Cannee,  which  are  in  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton's  collection.  Swords  similar  to  these  have  been 
discovered  also  in  Cornwall,  and  count  Caylus  has  given  an 
engraving  of  one,  of  tlie  same  kind,  which  he  calls  Gladius 
Hispaniensis,  and  which  came,  as  it  appears,  from  Hercu- 
laneum.  It  has  been  thought  not  improbable  that  all  these 
weapons,  the  Irish  as  well  as  the  others,  were  of  the  same 
P«nic  or  Phoenician  origin,  and  may  be  traced  to  those  colo- 
nies on  the  coasts  of  Spain  which  traded  anciently  with  the 
British  isles.  There  are  said  to  have  been  likewise  discovered 
some  scythe-blades  of  bronze,  such  as  were  attached  anciently 
to  the  wheels  of  war  chariots^: ;  the  use  of  that  Asiatic  mode 
of  warfare  having  prevailed  formerly,  we  are  told,  in  Ireland 
as  well  as  in  Britain.  That  for  some  parts  of  their  armour, 
more  especially  their  wicker  shields,  and  bows  with  short  ar- 
rows, the  Irish  were  indebted  to  their  Scythic  conquerors,  the 

*  Iverna  est  caeli  ad  maturanda  seinina  iniqui  ;  yerum  adeo  luxuriosa 
herbis  non  Isetis  modo,  sed  etiani  dulcibus,  ut  se  exigua  parte  diei  peoora  ini- 
pleant  et  nisi  pabulo  prohibeantur,  diutibus  pasta  dissiliant.— £>e  Situ  Orbis. 

t  Qui  student  cultui  dentibus  njarinaruui  belluarum  insigniunt  ensium 
capulos,  candicant  enim  ad  eburneam  claritatem  ;  nam  priccipuaviris  gloria 
est  in  ielis.— Solinus,  Poly  hist. 

X  Meyrick  on  Ancient  Armour,  vol.  i.  One  of  these  scythe-blades  of  bronze 
he  describes  as  thirteen  inches  long. 


ESTABLISHBIENT    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  175 

Scots,  appears  by  no  means  unlikely.*     But  the  most  ancient 

remainsf  of  their  weapons  are  the  stone  hatchets,  and  also 

those  heads  of  arrows|  and  spears,  some  of  flint,  and  others 

pointed  with  bones,  the  latter  resembling  those  which,  for  want 

of  iron,  were  used,  as  Tacitus  tells  us,  by  the  ancient  Fin-^ 

landers.  5  j^^^m^i^  ^-^  ^ 


CHAPTER  X. 

INTRODUCTION   OF  ClilllSTIANITY  INTO  IRELAND. 


JLihrai 


The  period  of  Irish  history  on  which  we  are  now 
enter,  and  of  which  the  mission  of  St.  Patrick  forms  the  prin- 
cipal feature,  will  be  found  to  exhibit,  perhaps,  as  singular  and 
striking  a  moral  spectacle  as  any  the  course  of  human  afl^irs 
ever  yet  presented.  A  community  of  fierce  and  proud  tribes, 
for  ever  warring  among  themselves,  and  wholly  secluded  from 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  with  an  ancient  hierarchy  entrenched 
in  its  own  venerable  superstitions,  and  safe  from  the  weaken- 
ing infusion  of  the  creeds  of  Greece  or  Rome,  would  seem  to 
present  as  dark  and  intractable  materials  for  the  formation  of 
a  Christian  people  as  any  that  could  be  conceived.  The  result 
proves,  however,  the  uncertainty  of  such  calculations  upon 
national  character,  while  it  affords  an  example  of  that  ready 
pliancy,  that  facility  in  yielding  to  new  impulses  and  influences, 
which,  in  the  Irish  character,  is  found  so  remarkably  combined 
with  a  fond  adherence  to  old  usages  and  customs,  and  with  that 
sort  of  retrospective  imagination  which  for  ever  yearns  after 
the  past. 

While,  in  all  other  countries,  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity has  been  the  slow  work  of  time,  has  been  resisted  by 

*  Ware's  Antiquities,  chap.  2. 

t  "  Hammers  of  stone  have  been  found  in  the  copper-mines  of  Kerry ; 
heads  of  arrows,  made  of  flint,  are  often  dug  up,  and  are  now  esteemed  tlie 
work  of  fairies."— CoWectan.  No.  2. 

X  According  to  a  work  quoted  by  Meyrick,  these  arrows  must  have  been 
more  ancient  than  even  the  time  of  the  Phoenicians.  "  The  inhabitants  of 
Britain  and  Ireland,  previous  to  their  intercourse  with  the  Phoenicians,  had 
merely  bows,  with  arrows  of  reed,  headed  with  flint,  or  pointed  with  bones, 
sharpened  to  an  acute  edge."  No  sooner,  however,  did  the  Phoenicians  effect 
an  amicable  interchange  with  these  islanders,  than  they  communicated  to 
them  the  art  of  manufacturing  their  warlike  instruments  of  metal.— CostMwe 
of  the  Orig.  Inhab.  of  the  British  Isles. 

§  Sola  in  sagittis  spes,  quas,  inopia  fcrri,  ossibus  aspenint.— German,  c.  4(5. 


176  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

either  government  or  people,  and  seldom  effected  without  a 
lavish  effusion  of  blood,  in  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  in- 
fluence of  one  humble  but  zealous  missionary,  and  with  but 
little  previous  preparation  of  the  soil  by  other  hands,  Chris- 
tianity burst  forth,  at  the  first  ray  of  apostolic  light,  and,  with 
the  sudden  ripeness  of  a  northern  summer,  at  once  covered 
the  whole  land.  Kings  and  princes,  when  not  themselves 
among  the  ranks  of  the  converted,  saw  their  sons  and  daughters 
joining  in  the  train  without  a  murmur.  Chiefs,  at  variance 
in  all  else,  agreed  in  meeting  beneath  the  Christian  banner; 
and  the  proud  Druid  and  Bard  laid  their  superstitions  meekly 
at  the  foot  of  the  cross ;  nor,  by  a  singular  blessing  of  Provi- 
dence—unexampled, indeed,  in  the  whole  history  of  the  church 
— was  there  a  single  drop  of  blood  shed,  on  account  of  religion, 
through  the  entire  course  of  this  mild  Christian  revolution,  by 
which,  in  the  space  of  a  few  years,  all  Ireland  was  brought 
tranquilly  under  the  dominion  of  the  Gospel.* 

By  no  methods  less  gentle  and  skilful  than  those  which  her 
great  Apostle  employed,  could  a  triumph  so  honourable,  as  well 
to  himself  as  to  his  nation  of  willing  converts,  have  been  ac- 
complished. Landing  alone,  or  with  but  a  few  humble  followers, 
on  their  shores,  the  circumstances  attending  his  first  appear- 
ance (of  which  a  detailed  account  shall  presently  be  given) 
were  of  a  nature  strongly  to  affect  the  minds  of  a  people  of 
lively  and  religious  imaginations ;  and  the  flame,  once  caught, 
found  fuel  in  the  very  superstitions  and  abuses  which  it  came 
to  consume.  Had  any  attempt  been  made  to  assail,  or  rudely 
alter,  the  ancient  ceremonies  and  symbols  of  their  faith,  all 
that  prejudice  in  favour  of  old  institutions,  which  is  so  inherent 
in  the  nation,  would  at  once  have  rallied  around  their  primitive 
creed  ;  and  the  result  would,  of  course,  have  been  wholly  dif- 
ferent. But  the  same  policy  by  which  Christianity  did  not 
disdain  to  win  her  way  in  more  polished  countries,  was  adopted 
by  the  first  missionaries  in  Ireland ;  and  the  outward  forms  of 
past  error  became  the  vehicle  through  which  new  and  vital 
truths  were  conveyed.f     The  days  devoted,  from  old  times,  to 

*  Giraldus  Cambrensis  has  J)een  guilty  of  eithfjr  the  bigotry  or  the  stupidity 
of  adducing  this  bloodless  triuiajilj  of  Christia;iity  among  the  Irish,  as  a 
charge  against  that  people; — "Pro  Christi  ecclesia  corona  martyri  nulla. 
Non  igitur  inventus  est  in  partibus  istis,  qui  ecclesite  surgentis  fundamenta 
sanguinis  eflusione  cenientaret :  non  fuit  qui  fucerit  hoc  bonum ;  non  fuit 
useque  ad  unum." — Topog.  Ilib.  dist.  iii.  cap.  29. 

t  The  very  same  policy  was  recommended  by  Pope  Gregory  to  Augustine 
and  his  fellow-labourers  in  England.  See  his  letter  to  the  Abbot  Mellitus,  in 
Bede,  (lib.  i.  c.  30.)  where  he  suggests  that  the  temples  of  the  idols  in  that 
nation  ought  not  to  be  destroyed.  "  Let  the  iifols  that  are  in  them,"  he  says, 
"  be  destroyed;  let  holy  water  be  made,  and  sprinkled  in  the  .-aid  temples; 


NUNS    OF    ST.  BRIDGET.  177 

Pagan  festivals,  were  now  transferred  to  the  service  of  the 
Christian  cause.  The  feast  of  Samhin,  which  had  been  held 
annually  at  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox,  was  found  oppor- 
tunely to  coincide  with  the  celebration  of  Easter;  and  the  fires 
lighted  up  by  the  Pagan  Irish,  to  welcome  the  summer  solstice, 
were  continued  afterwards,  and  even  down  to  the  present  day, 
in  honour  of  the  eve  of  St.  John. 

At  every  step,  indeed,  the  transition  to  a  new  faith  was 
smoothed  by  such  coincidences  or  adoptions.  The  convert 
saw  in  the  baptismal  font,  where  he  was  immersed,  the  sacred 
well  at  which  his  fathers  had  worshipped.  The  Druid ical 
stone  on  the  "high  places"  bore,  rudely  graved  upon  it,  the 
name  of  the  Redeemer ;  and  it  was  in  general  by  the  side  of 
those  ancient  pillar  towers — whose  origin  was  even  then,  per- 
haps, a  mystery — that,  in  order  to  share  in  the  solemn  feelings 
which  they  inspired,  the  Christian  temples  arose.  With  the 
same  view,  the  Sacred  Grove  was  anew  consecrated  to  religion, 
and  the  word  Dair,  or  oak,  so  often  combined  with  the  names 
of  churches  in  Ireland,  sufficiently  marks  the  favourite  haunts 
of  the  idolatry  which  they  superseded.*  In  some  instances, 
the  accustomed  objects  of  former  worship  were  associated, 
even  more  intimately,  with  the  new  faith ;  and  the  order  of 
Druidesses,  as  well  as  the  idolatry  which  they  practised,  seemed 
to  be  revived,  or  rather  continued,  by  the  Nuns  of  St.  Bridget, 
in  their  inextinguishable  fire  and  miraculous  oak  at  Kildare.f 

let  altars  be  erected,  and  relics  placed.  For  if  those  temples  are  well  built, 
it  is  requisite  that  they  be  converted  from  the  worship  of  devils  to  the  service 
of  the  true  God ;  that  the  nation,  not  seeing  those  temples  destroyed,  may 
remove  error  from  their  hearts,  and  knowing  and  adoring  the  true  God,  may 

more  willingly  resort  to  the  same  places  they  were  wont For  there  is  no 

doubt  but  that  it  is  impossible  to  retrench  all  at  once  from  obdurate  minds, 
because  he  who  endeavours  to  ascend  the  highest  place,  rises  by  degrees  or 
steps,  and  not  by  leaps."  See  Hume's  remarks  on  this  policy  of  the  first 
missionaries,  vol.  i.  chap.  1. 

With  similar  views,  the  early  Christians  selected,  in  general,  for  the  fes- 
tivals of  their  church,  such  days  as  had  become  hallowed  to  the  Pagans  by 
the  celebration  of  some  of  their  religious  solemnities. 

*  Thus  Dairmagh,  now  called  Durrogh,  in  the  King's  County,  once  the 
site  of  a  celebrated  monastery,  signifies  the  Oak  Grove  of  the  Plain,  or  the 
Plain  of  the  Oaks.  The  name  of  the  ancient  monastery,  Doire-Calgaich, 
from  whence  the  city  of  Derry  was  designated,  recalls  the  memory  of  the 
Hill  of  Oaks,  on  which  it  was  originally  erected  ;  and  the  chosen  seat  of  St. 
Bridget,  Kildare,  was  but  the  Druid's  Cell  of  Oaks  converted  into  a  Christian 
temple. 

t  See  Giraldus,  Topog.  Hibern.  dist.  ii.  cap.  34,  35,  36.  48.  The  Tales  of 
Giraldus,  on  this  subject,  are  thus  rendered  by  a  learned  but  fanciful  writer, 
the  author  of  Nimrod: — "St.  Bridget  is  certainly  no  other  than  Vesta,  or 
the  deity  of  the  fire-worshippers  in  a  female  form.  The  fire  of  St.  Bridget 
was  originally  in  the  keeping  of  nine  virgins ;  but  in  the  time  of  Giraldus 
Cambrensis  there  were  twenty,  who  used  to  watch  alternate  nights ;  but  on 
the  twentieth  night,  the  man  whose  turn  it  was  merelv  to  throw  on  the 


178  HISTORY  OF  ikela:nd. 

To  what  extent  Christianity  had  spread,  in  Ireland,  before 
the  mission  of  St.  Patrick,  there  are  no  very  accurate  mean* 
of  judging.  The  boast  of  Tertullian,  that,  in  his  time,  a  know- 
ledge of  the  Christian  faith  had  reached  those  parts  of  the 
British  isles  yet  unapproached  by  the  Romans,  is  supposed  to 
imply  as  well  Ireland  as  the  northern  regions  of  Britain* ;  nor 
are  there  wanting  writers,  who,  placing  reliance  on  the  asser- 
tion of  Eusebius,  that  some  of  the  apostles  preached  the  Gospel 
in  the  British  isles,  suppose  St.  James  the  elder  to  have  been 
the  promulgator  of  the  faith  among  the  iTishf, — just  as  St.  Paul, 
on  the  same  hypothesis,  is  said  to  have  communicated  it'to  the 
Britons. 

But  though  unfurnished  with  any  direct  evidence  as  to  the 
religious  state  of  the  Irish  in  their  own  country,  we  have  a 
proof  how  early  they  began  to  distinguish  themselves,  on  the 
continent,  as  Christian  scholars  and  writers,  in  the  persons  of 
Pelagius,  the  eminent  heresiarch,  and  his  able  disciple  Celes- 
tius.  That  the  latter  was  a  Scot,  or  native  of  Ireland,  is  almost 
universally  admitted ;  but  of  Pelagius  it  is,  in  general,  asserted 
that  he  was  a  Briton,  and  a  monk  of  Bangor  in  Wales.  There 
appears  little  doubt,  however,  that  this  statement  is  erroneous, 
and  that  the  monastery  to  which  he  belonged  was  that  of  Ban- 
gor, or  rather  Banchor,  near  Carrickfergus.  Two  of  the  most 
learned,  indeed,  of  all  the  writers  respecting  the  heresy  which 
bears  his  name,  admit  Pelagius,  no  less  than  his  disciple,  to 
have  been  a  native  of  Ireland.  | 

wood,  crying,  "  Bridget,  watch  thine  own  fire  !"— in  the  morning  the  wood 
was  found  consumed,  but  the  fire  unextinguished.  Nor,  indeed,  (saith  Gi- 
raldus)  hath  it  ever  been  extinguislied  during  so  many  ages  since  that  vir- 
gin's time ;  nor,  with  such  piles  of  fuel  as  have  been  there  consumed,  did 
it  ever  leave  ashes.  The  fire  was  surrounded  by  a  fence,  of  form  circular, 
like  Vesta's  temple—'  Virgeo  orbiculari  sepe,'— which  no  male  creature 
could  enter,  and  escape  divine  vengeance.  An  archer  of  the  household  of 
Count  Richard  jumped  over  St.  Bridget's  fence,  and  went  mad;  and  he 
would  blow  in  the  face  of  whoever  he  met,  saying,  '  Thus  did  I  blow  St. 
Bridget's  fire !'  Another  man  put  his  leg  through  a  gap  in  the  fence,  and 
was  withered  up."— Vol.  ii. 

*  Britannorum  inaccessa  Romanis  loca,  Christo  vero  subdita.— iiJ.  adv. 
JttdiEos,  cap.  7. 

t  See  the  authorities  collected  on  this  point  by  Usher,  Eccles.  Primord. 
chap.  i.  xvi.  Vincent  de  Beauvais  thus  asserts  it: — "Nutu  Dei  Jacobus  Hiber- 
niae  oris  appulsus  verbum  Dei  pra;dicavit  intrepidus,  ubi  septem  discipulos 
eligisse  fertur:'— Speculum  Historiale,  lib.  viii.  c.  7.  It  has  been  well  conjec- 
tured by  Usher  that  this  story  has  arisen  from  a  confusion  of  Hibernia  with 
Hiberia ;  the  latter  being  one  of  the  names  of  Spain,  which  country  St. 
James  is  said  to  have  visited. 

X  Gamier,  in  his  Dissert,  upon  Pelagianism;  and  Vossius,  in  his  Histor. 
Pelag.  The  latter  says  :— "  Pelagius  professione  monachus,  natione  non 
Gallus  Brito,  ut  Danieus  putavit ;  nee  Anglo-Britannus,  ut  scripsit  Balseus, 
sed  Scotus."— Lib.  i.  cap.  3. 


PELAGIAN    DOCTRINES.  179 

By  few  of  the  early  Christian  heresiarchs  was  so  deep  an 
impression  made  on  their  own  times,  or  such  abundant  fuel  for 
controversy  bequeathed  to  the  future,  as  by  this  remarkable 
man,  Pelagius,  whose  opinions  had  armed  against  him  all  the 
most  powerful  theologians  of  his  day,  and  who  yet  extorted, 
even  from  his  adversaries,  the  praise  of  integrity  and  talent 
The  very  bitterness  with  which  St,  Jerome  attacks  him,  but 
shows  how  deeply  he  felt  his  power* ;  while  the  eulogies  so 
honourably  bestowed  upon  him  by  his  great  opponent,  St.  Au- 
gustine, will  always  be  referred  to  by  the  lovers  of  tolerance, 
as  a  rare  instance  of  that  spirit  of  fairness  and  liberality  by 
which  the  warfare  of  religious  controversy  may  be  softened. f 

The  rank  of  Celestius,  in  public  repute,  though  subordinate, 
of  course,  to  that  of  his  master,  was  not,  in  its  way,  less  dis- 
tinguished. So  high  was  the  popular  estimate  of  his  talents, 
that  most  of  the  writings  circulated  under  the  name  of  Pelagius, 
were  supposed  to  have  been  in  reality  the  production  of  his 
disciple's  pen.  We  are  told  by  St.  Augustine,  indeed,  that 
many  of  the  followers  of  the  heresy  chose  to  style  themselves,- 
after  the  latter,  Celestians ;  and  St.  Jerome,  in  one  of  his 
paroxysms  of  vituperation,  goes  so  far  as  to  call  him  "  the 
leader  of  the  whole  Pelagian  army."]: 

While  yet  a  youth,  and  before  he  had  adopted  the  Pelagian 
doctrines,  Celestius  had  passed  some  time  in  a  monastery  on  the 
continent,  supposed  to  have  been  that  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours, 
and  from  thence  (a.  d.  369)  addressed  to  his  parents,  in  Ireland, 
three  letters,  "in  the  form,"  as  we  are  told,  "of  little  books,"  and  • 
full  of  such  piety,  "  as  to  make  them  necessary  to  all  who  love 
God."  Among  his  extant  works  there  is  mentioned  an  epistle 
"  On  the  Knowledge  of  Divine  Law ;"  which,  by  some,  is  con- 
jectured to  have  been  one  of  those  letters  addressed  by  him  to 
his  parents.  5     But  Vossius  has  shown,  from  internal  evidence, 

*  Among  other  reflections  on  the  country  of  Pelagius,  St.  Jerome  throws 
in  his  teeth  the  Irish  flummery  :— "  Nee  recordatur  stolidissimus  et  Scotorum 
pultibus  prtEgravatus."— In  Hierem.  Prcefat.  lib.  i.  Upon  this,  Vossius  re- 
marks : — "  Nam  per  Scotorum  ptdtibns  prmgravatum,  non  alium  inteliigit 
quam  Pelagium  natione  Scotum." — Lib.  i.  cap.  3. 

t  The  following  are  a  few  of  the  passages,  in  which  this  praise,  so  credit- 
able to  both  parties,  is  conveyed : — "  Pelagii,  viri,  ut  audio,  sanctit  et  non 
parvo  profectu  Christiani. "—Z?c  Peccat.  meritis  ac  remiss,  lib.  iii.  cap.  L — 
*'  Eum  qui  noverunt  loquuntur  bonum  ac  praedicandum  virum."— 76.  cap.  3. 
And  again,  "  Vir  ille  tarn  egregie  Christianus." 

X  "  Pelagii  licet  discipulum  tamen  magistrum  et  ductorem  oxercitus." — 
F.pist.  ad  Ctesiphont.  ^ 

§  "  Cselestius  antequam  dogma  Pelagianum  incurreret,  imo  adhuc  adoles- 
cens  scripsit  ad  parentes  suos  de  monasterio  epistolas  in  modum  libellorum 
tres,  omni  Deum  desideranti  necessarias."— Gic?madi«s,  Catal.  Illust.  Vir. 
By  Dr.  O'Connor,  this  passage  of  Gennadius  has  been  rather  unaccountably 


180  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

that  this  could  not  have  been  the  case ;  the  epistle  in  question 
being,  as  he  says,  manifestly  tinged  with  Pelagianism*,  and 
therefore  to  be  referred  to  a  later  date.  The  fact  of  Celestius 
thus  sending  letters  to  Ireland,  with  an  implied  persuasion,  of 
course,  that  they  would  be  read,  affords  one  of  those  incidental 
proofs  of  the  art  of  writing  being  then  known  to  the  Irish, 
which,  combining  with  other  evidence  more  direct,  can  leave 
but  little  doubt  upon  the  subject.  A  country  that  could  produce, 
indeed,  before  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  two  such  able 
and  distinguished  men  as  Pelagius  and  Celestius,  could  hardly 
have  been  a  novice,  at  that  time,  in  civilization,  however  se- 
cluded from  the  rest  of  Europe  she  had  hitherto  remained. 

From  some  phrases  of  St.  Jerome,  in  one  of  his  abusive 
attacks  on  Pelagius,  importing  that  the  heresy  professed  by 
the  latter  was  common  to  others  of  his  countrymen,  it  has  been 
fairly  concluded  that  the  opinions  in  question  were  not  confined 
to  these  two  Irishmen ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  had  even  spread 
to  some  extent  among  that  people.  It  is,  indeed,  probable,  that 
whatever  Christians  Ireland  could  boast  at  this  period,  were 
mostly  followers  of  the  peculiar  tenets  of  their  two  celebrated 
countrymen ;  and  the  fact  that  Pelagianism  had,  at  some  early 
period,  found  its  way  into  this  country,  is  proved  by  a  letter 
from  the  Roman  clergy  to  those  of  Ireland,  in  the  year  640, 
wlierein,  adverting  to  some  indications  of  a  growth  of  heresy, 
at  that  time,  they  pronounce  it  to  be  a  revival  of  the  old  Pela- 
gian virus.f 

Already  in  Britain,  where,  at  the  period  of  which  we  are 
treating,  Christianity  had  for  more  than  a  century,  flourished|, 
the  tenets  of  Pelagius  had  been  rapidly  gaining  ground ;  and 
the  mission  of  St.  German  and  Lupus  to  that  country,  in  the 
year  429,  was  for  the  express  purpose  of  freeing  it  from  the 
infection  of  this  heresy.  Among  the  persons  who  accompanied 
this  mission,  was  the  future  apostle  of  Ireland,  Patrick,  then 
in  his  forty-second  year.     While  thus  occupied,  the  attention 

brought  forward,  in  proof  of  the  early  introduction  of  monastic  institutions 
into  Ireland.  "  Monachorum  instituta  toto  fere  siEculo  ante  S.  Patricii  adven- 
tum,  invecta  fuisse  in  Hiberniam  patet  ex  supra  allatis  de  Caelestio,  qui  ab 
ipsa  adolescentia  inonasterio  se  dicavit,  ut  scribit  Genadius."  But  the  mere 
fact  of  the  Irishman  Celestius  having  been  in  a  monastery  on  the  continent, 
is  assuredly  no  proof  of  the  introduction  of  monastic  establishments  into 
Ireland." — See  JProl.  i.  Ixxviii. 

*  Manifeste,  ntAaytav^ct 

t  Et  hoc  quoque  cognovimus,  quod  virus  Pelagians  haereseos  apud  vos 
denuo  reviviscit. 

X  British  bishops  had  already  been  present  at  some  continental  councils: 
at  that  of  Aries,  in  a.  d.  314  ;  and  at  the  council  of  Nice,  as  is  shown  to  be 
probable,  (Antiq.  of  Churches,  chap,  ii.)  in  the  year  325. 


MISSION    OF    PALLADIUS.  181 

of  these  missionaries  would  naturally  be  turned  to  the  state 
of  Christianity  in  Ireland ;  and  it  was,  doubtless,  the  accounts 
which  they  gave  of  the  increasing  number  of  Christians,  in 
that  country,  as  well  as  of  the  inroads  already  made  upon  them 
by  the  Pelagian  doctrines,  that  induced  pope  Celestine  to  turn 
his  attention  to  the  wants  of  the  Irish,  and  t(5  appoint  a  bishop 
for  the  superintendence  of  tlieir  infant  church.  The  person 
chosen  for  this  mission  "to  the  Scots  believing  in  Christ"  (for 
so  it  is  specified  by  the  chronicler)*  was  Palladius,  a  deacon 
of  the  Roman  church,  at  whose  instance  St.  German  had  been 
sent  by  the  pope  to  reclaim  the  erring  Britons ;  and,  whatever 
preachers  of  the  faith,  foreign  or  native,  might  have  appeared 
previously  in  Ireland,  it  seems  certain  that,  before  this  period, 
no  hierarchy  had  been  there  instituted,  but  that  in  Palladius 
the  Irish  Christians  saw  their  first  bishop. 

For  a  short  period,  success  appears  to  have  attended  his 
mission ;  and  a  zealous  anti-Pelagian  of  that  day,  in  his  haste 
to  laud  the  spiritual  triumphs  of  the  pope,  prematurely  an- 
nounced thUt  the  new  missionary  to  the  British  isles,  "  while 
endeavouring  to  keep  Britain  Catholic,  had  made  Ireland 
Christian."t  The  result,  however,  as  regards  the  latter  coun- 
try, was  by  no  means  so  prosperous.  The  few  believers  Pal- 
ladius found  or  succeeded  in  making  during  his  short  stay, 
could  ill  protect  him  against  the  violence  of  the  numbers  who 
opposed  him;  and,  after  some  unavailing  efforts  to  obtain  a 
hearing  for  his  doctrine,  he  was  forced  to  fly  from  the  country, 
leaving  behind  him  no  other  memorial  of  his  labours  than  the 
adage  traditional  among  the  Irish,  that  "  not  to  Palladius  but 
to  Patrick  did  God  grant  the  conversion  of  Ireland."  This 
ill-fated  missionary  did  not  live  to  report  his  failure  at  Rome ; 
but  being  driven  by  a  storm  on  the  coast  of  North  Britain, 
there  died,  it  is  said,  at  Fordun,  in  the  district  of  Mearns. 

Before  entering  on  an  account  of  St.  Patrick's  mission,  a 
brief  sketch  of  his  life,  previous  to  that  period,  may  be  deemed 
requisite.  It  will  be  seen  that  with  him,  as  perhaps  with  most 
men  who  have  achieved  extraordinary  actions,  a  train  of  prepa- 
ration appears  to  have  been  laid,  from  the  very  outset,  for  the 

*  "  Ad  Scotos  in  Christum  credentes  ordinatus  a  Papa  Celestino  Palladius 
primus  Episcopus  mittitur."— Prosper.  Chron.  Bass,  et  Antioch.  Coss. 

t  Et  ordinate  Scotis  episcopo,  dum  Romanam  insulam  studet  servare  Ca- 
tholicam,  fecit  etiam  Barbaram  Christianam.— Prosper,  Lib.  contra  Collat. 
cap.  41.  This  sanguine  announcement  was  issued  by  Prosper,  in  a  work 
directed  against  the  semi-Pelagians,  when  the  true  result  of  Palladius's  mis- 
sion had  not  yet  reached  him.  With  respect  to  the  epithet  "  barbara,"  here 
applied  to  Ireland,  it  is  well  known  that  whatever  country  did  not  form  a 
part  of  the  Roman  empire,  was,  from  ancient  custom,  so  styled. 

Vol.  I.  16 


182  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

mighty  work  he  was  to  accomplish.  Respecting  his  birth-place, 
there  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion ;  the  prevailing  no- 
tion being  that  he  was  born  at  Alcluit,  now  Dunbarton,  in 
North  Britain.*  It  is  only,  however,  by  a  very  forced  and 
false  construction  of  some  of  the  evidence  on  the  subject,  that 
any  part  of  Great  Britain  can  be  assigned  as  the  birth-place 
of  the  Saint ;  and  his  own  Confession,  a  work  of  acknowledged 
genuineness,  proves  him  to  have  been  a  native  of  the  old  Gal- 
ilean, or  rather  Armoric  Britain.f  The  country  anciently 
known  by  tliis  name  comprised  the  wliole  of  the  north-west 
coasts  of  Gaul ;  and  in  the  territory  now  called  Boulogne,  St. 
Patrick,  it  appears,  was  born.  That  it  was  on  the  Armorican 
coast  he  had  been  made  captive,  in  his  boyhood,  all  the  writers 
of  his  life  agree;  and  as  it  is  allowed  also  by  the  same  au- 
thorities that  his  family  was  resident  there  at  the  time,  there 
arose  a  difficulty  as  to  the  cause  of  their  migration  thither  from 
the  banks  of  the  Clyde,  which  the  fact,  apparent  from  his  own 
statement,  that  Armorica  was  actually  the  place  of  his  na- 
tivity disposes  of  satisfactorily.  His  family  was,  as 'he  informs 
us,  respectable,  his  father  having  held  the  office  of  Decurio, 
or  municipal  senator;  though,  as  it  appears,  he  afterwards 
entered  into  holy  orders,  and  was  a  deacon.  From  a  passage 
in  the  Letter  of  tiie  Saint  to  Coroticus,  it  is  supposed,  and  not 
improbably,  that  his  family  may  have  been  of  Roman  origin ; 
and  tlie  opinion  that  his  mother,  Conchessa,  was  a  native  of 
some  part  of  the  Gauls,  is  concurred  in  by  all  the  old  Irish 
writers. 

The  year  of  his  birth  has  been  likewise  a  subject  of  much 
variance  and  controversy ;  but  the  calculations  most  to  be  re- 
lied upon  assign  it  to  a.  u.  387,  which,  according  to  his  own 
statement  of  Jiis  having  been,  at  the  time  when  he  was  made 
captive,  sixteen  years  of  age,  brings  this  latter  event  to  the 
year  403,  a  period  memorable  in  Irish  history,  when  the  mo- 

*  Dr.  O'Connor,  who  was  of  this  opinion,  takes  also  for  granted  that,  as 
a  native  of  Alcluid,  or  Diinbarton,  St.  Patrick  ini<{ht  have  been  claimed  as 
Scoto-Iri.sh  ;  Alcluid  liaving  heeii,  as  he  asserts,  the  seat  of  the  Irish  kings 
in  Albany.  "Alcluid,  Riipes  Cludensis,  hodie  Dunbarton,  quae  fuit  regia  arx 
regain  Ilibcrnoruni  AlbajiiLC."  He  adds :—"  Nat  us  est  itaque  S.  Patricius 
inter  Ilibernos  in  pnecipuo  Hibornoruni  propugnaculo  in  Albania."  Prol.  i. 
xcviii.  This  surely,  however,  is  incorrect.  The  city  in  question— the  Rock 
of  Clyde,  as  it  was  called— remained  in  the  hands  of  the  British  so  late  as  the 
daj'8  of  Bede  (1.  i.  c.  12.) ;  and  it  was,  therefore,  not  for  many  centuries  after 
the  time  of  St.  Patrick  that  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  the  Scots. 

t  Patrem  habui  Calpornium  diaconum,  filium  quofidam  Potiti  presbyteri, 
qui  fuit  in  vico  Bonacem  TabernitP.:  villulam  Enon  prope  habuit,  ubi  captu- 
ram  AeA'i.— Confess.  Doctor  Lanigan  has  shown  clearly  that  the  place  here 
mentioned,  Bonavem,  or  Bonaveni  Taberniai,  was  in  Armoric  Gaul,  being  the 
same  town  as  Boulogne-sur-Mer  in  Picardy.— See  Eccles.  Ilist.  chap.  2. 


ST.    PATRICK.  183 

narch  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  after  laying  waste  the  coasts 
of  Great  Britain,  extended  his  ravages  to  the  maritime  districts 
of  Gaul. 

On  being  carried  by  his  captors  to  Ireland,  the  young 
Patrick  was  purchased,  as  a  slave,  by  a  man  named  /qo* 
Milcho,  who  lived  in  tliat  part  of  Dalaradia  which  is 
now  comprised  witliin  the  county  of  Antrim.  The  occupation 
assigned  to  him  was  the  tending  of  sheep ;  and  his  lonely  ram- 
bles over  tlie  mountain  and  in  the  forest  are  described  by  him- 
self as  having  been  devoted  to  constant  prayer  and  thought, 
and  to  the  nursing  of  those  deep  devotional  feelings  which, 
even  at  that  time,  lie  felt  strongly  stirring  within  him.  The 
mountain  alluded  to  by  him,  as  the  scene  of  these  meditations, 
is  supposed  to  have  been  Sliebhmis,  as  it  is  now  called,  in  An- 
trim. At  length,  after  six  years  of  servitude,  the  desire  of 
escaping  from  bondage  arose  in  his  heart;  a  voice  in  his 
dreams,  he  says,  told  him  that  he  "  was  soon  to  go  to  his  own 
country,"  and  that  a  ship  was  ready  to  convey  him.  Accord- 
ingly, in  the  seventh  year  of  his  slavery,  he  betook  himself  to 
flight,  and,  making  his  way  to  the  south-western  coast  of  Ire- 
land, was  there  received,  witli  some  reluctance,  on  board  a 
merchant  vessel,  which,  after  a  voyage  of  three  days,  landed 
him  on  the  coast  of  Gaul.* 

After  indulging,  for  a  time,  in  the  society  of  liis  pa- 
rents  and  friends,  being  naturally  desirous  of  retrieving    /^^q' 
the  loss  of  those  years  during  which  he  had  been  left     , 
without  instruction,  he  repaired  to  the  celebrated  mo-   ^-.^ 
nastery  or  college  of  St.  Martinf,  near  Tours,  where 
he  remained  four  years,  and  was,  it  is  believed,  initiated  there 
in  the  ecclesiastical  state.     That  his  mind  dwelt  much  on  re- 
collections of  Ireland,  may  be  concluded  from  a  dream  which 
he  represents  himself  to  have  had  about  this  time,  in  which  a 
messenger  appeared  to  him,  coming  as  if  from  Ireland,  and 
bearing  innumerable  letters,  on  one  of  which  were  written 
these  words,  "  The  Voice  of  the  Irish."   At  the  same  moment, 
he  fancied  that  he  could  hear  the  voices  of  persons  from  the 
wood  of  Foclat,  near  the  Western  Sea,  crying  out,  as  if  with 
one  voice,  "  We  entreat  thee,  holy  youth,  to  come  and  walk 


*  It  is  said  in  some  of  the  lives  of  St.  Patrick  that  there  was  a  law  in  Ire- 
land, according  to  which  slaves  should  become  free  in  the  seventh  year,  and 
that  it  was  under  this  law  he  gained  his  liberty.  The  same  writers  add,  that 
this  was  conformable  to  the  practice  of  the  "Hebrews— more  Hebraeorum. — 
(Levit.  XXV.  40.)    See  on  this  point,  Dr.  Lanigan,  chap.  iv.  note  43. 

t  The  monastic  institution,  says  Mabillon,  was  introduced  "  in  Hiberniam 
insulam  per  S,  Patricium,  S,  Martini  discipulum." 


184  HISTORY    OF    IRELAKD. 

Still  among  us." — "I  was  greatly  affected  in  my  heart,"  adds 
the  Saint,  in  describing  this  dream,  "  and  could  read  no  fur- 
ther ;  I  then  awoke."*  In  these  natural  workings  of  a  warm 
and  pious  imagination,  described  by  hunself  thus  simply, — so 
unlike  the  prodigies  and  miracles  with  which  most  of  tlie 
legends  of  his  life  abound, — we  see  what  a  hold  the  remem- 
brance of  Ireland  had  taken  of  his  youthful  fancy,  and  how 
fondly  he  already  contemplated  some  holy  work  in  her  service. 

At  the  time  when  this  vision  occurred,  St.  Patrick  was 
about  thirty  years  old,  and  it  was  shortly  after,  we  are  told, 
that  he  placed  himself  under  the  spiritual  direction  of  St,  Ger- 
man of  Auxerre,  a  man  of  distinguished  reputation,  -in  those 
times,  both  as  a  civilian  and  an  ecclesiastic.  From  this  period, 
there  is  no  very  accurate  account  of  the  Saint's  studies  or 
transactions,  till,  in  the  year  429,  we  find  him  accompanying 
St.  German  and  Lupus,  in  tlieir  expedition  to  Britain,  for  the 
purpose  of  eradicating  from  that  country  the  growing  errors 
of  Pelagianism.  Nine  years  of  this  interval  he  is  said  to  have 
passed  in  an  island,  or  islands,  of  tlie  Tuscan  Sea;  and  the 
conjecture  that  Lerins  was  the  place  of  his  retreat  seems,  not- 
withstanding the  slight  geographical  difficulty,  by  no  means 
improbable.  There  had  been  recently  a  monastery  established 
in  that  island,  which  became  afterwards  celebrated  for  the  num- 
ber of  holy  and  learned  persons  whom  it  had  produced ;  nor 
could  the  destined  apostle  have  chosen  for  himself  a  retreat 
more  calculated  to  nurse  the  solemn  enthusiasm  which  such  a 
mission  required  tlian  among  the  pious  and  contemplative  Soli- 
taries of  the  small  isle  of  Lerins. 

The  attention  of  Rome  being  at  this  time  directed  to  the 
state  of  Christianity  among  the  Irish, — most  probably  by  the 
reports  on  that  subject  received  from  the  British  missionaries, 
— it  was  resolved  by  Celestine  to  send  a  bishop  to  that  country, 
and  Palladhis  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  person  appointed.  The 
peculiar  circumstances  which  fitted  St.  Patrick  to  take  part  in 
such  a  mission,  and  probably  his  own  expressed  wishes  to  that 
effect,  induced  St.  German  to  send  him  to  Rome  with  recom- 


*  The  following  is  the  Saint's  description  of  this  dream  in  his  own  homely 
Latin :— Et  ibi  scilicet  vidi  in  visu,  nocte,  virum  venientem  quasi  de  Hiberi- 
one,  cui  nomen  Victoricius,  cum  epistulis  innumerabilibus,  et  dedit  mihi 
unam  ex  illis,  et  legi  principium  epistolte  continentem  Vox  Hiberionacum. 
Et  dum  recitabam  principium  epistolse  piitabam  ipso  momento  audire  vocem 
ipsorum  qui  erant  juxta  sylvan  Focluti,  quae  est  prope  mare  occidentale.  Et 
sic  exclamaverunt  quasi  ex  uno  ore,  Rogamus  te,  saucte  puer,  ut  venias  el 
adhuc  ambules  inter  nos.  Et  valde  conpunctus  sum  corde,  et  amplius  non 
potui  legere  :  et  sic  expergefactus  sum." 


ST.    PATRICK.  185 

raendations  to  the  Holy  Father.    But,  before  his  arrival, 
Palladius  had  departed  for  Ireland,  and  the  hopeless  re-    /„?* 
suit  of  his  mission  has  already  been  related.     Immedi- 
ately on  the  death  of  this  bishop,  two  or  three  of  his  disciples 
set  out  to  announce  the  event  to  his  successor  St.  Patrick,  who 
was  then  on  his  way  through  Gaul.     Having  had  himself  con- 
secrated bishop  at  Eboria,  a  town  in  the  north-west  of  that 
country,  the  Saint  proceeded  on  his  course  to  the  scene  of  his 
labours ;  and,  resting  but  a  short  time  in  Britain*,  arrived  in 
Ireland,  as  the  Irish  Annals  inform  us,  in  the  first  year  of  the 
pontificate  of  Sextus  the  Third. 

His  first  landing  appears  to  have  been  on  the  shore 
bf  Dublin ;  or,  as  it  is  described,  "  the  celebrated  port  /.^o* 
of  the  territory  of  the  Evoleni,"  by  which  is  supposed 
to  have  been  meant  the  "  portus  Eblanorum"  of  Ptolemy,  the 
present  harbour  of  Dublin.  After  meeting  with  a  repulse,  at 
this  and  some  other  places  in  Leinster,  the  Saint,  anxious,  we 
are  told,  to  visit  the  haunts  of  his  youth,  to  see  his  old  master 
Milcho,  and  endeavour  to  convert  him  .to  the  faith,  steered  his 
course  for  East  Ulster,  and  arrived  with  his  companions  at  a 
port  near  Strangford,  in  the  district  now  called  the  barony  of 
Locale.  Here,  on  landing  and  proceeding  a  short  way  up  the 
country,  they  were  met  by  a  herdsman,  in  the  service  of  the 
lord  of  the  district,  who,  supposing  them  to  be  sea-robbers  or 
pirates,  hastened  to  alarm  the  whole  household.  In  a  moment, 
the  master  himself,  whose  name  was  Dicho,  made  his  appear- 
ance, attended  by  a  number  of  armed  followers,  and  threaten- 
ing destruction  to  the  intruders.  But,  on  seeing  St.  Patrick, 
so  much  struck  was  the  rude  chief  with  the  calm  sanctity  of 
his  aspect,  that  the  uplifted  weapon  was  suspended,  and  he  at 
once  invited  the  whole  of  the  party  to  his  dwelling.  The  im- 
pression which  the  looks  of  the  Saint  had  made,  his  Christian 
eloquence  but  served  to  deepen  and  confirm ;  and  not  merely 
the  pagan  lord  himself,  but  all  his  family,  became  converts. 

In  an  humble  barn  belonging  to  this  chief,  which  was  ever 
after  called  Sabhul  Padruic,  or  Patrick's  Barn,  the  Saint  cele- 
brated divine  worship ;  and  we  shall  find  that  this  spot,  conse- 

*  During  one  of  St.  Patrick's  visits  to  Britain,  he  is  supposed  to  have 
preached  in  Cornwall.  "  By  persisting  in  their  Druidism,"  saj-s  Borlase, 
"  the  Britons  of  Cornwall  drew  the  attention  of  St.  Patrick  this  way,  who, 
about  the  year  432,  with  twenty  companions,  halted  a  little  on  his  way  to 
Ireland  on  the  shores  of  Cornwall,  where  he  is  said  to  have  built  a  monas- 
tery. Whether  St.  German  was  in  Cornwall  at  this  time,  I  cannot  say  ;  but 
(according  to  Usher)  he  was  either  in  Cornwall  or  Wales,  for  St.  Patrick  is 
.said,  "  ad  pra3ceptorem  suum  beatum  Germanum  divertisse,  et  apud  Britannos 
in  partibus  Cornubiae  et  Cambria?  aliquandiu  subtitissc."— JSor^rtse,  Jinliq. 
book  iv.  chap.  x.  sect.  2. 

16* 


186  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

crated  by  his  first  spiritual  triumph,  continued  to  the  last  hiy 
most  favourite  and  most  frequented  retreat. 

Desirous  of  visiting  his  former  abode,  and  seeing  that  moun- 
tain where  he  had  so  often  prayed  in  the  time  of  his  bondage, 
he  set  out  for  the  residence  of  his  master  Milcho,  which  ap- 
pears to  have  been  situated  in  the  valley  of  Arcuil,  in  that  dis- 
trict of  Dalaradia  inliabited  by  the  Cruthene,  or  Irish  Picts. 
Whatever  might  have  been  his  hope  of  effecting  the  conver- 
sion of  his  old  master,  he  was  doomed  to  meet  with  disappoint- 
ment ;  as  Milcho,  fixed  and  inveterate  in  his  heathenism,  on 
hearing  of  the  approach  of  his  holy  visiter,  refused  to  receive 
or  see  him. 

After  remaining  some  time  in  Down,  to  which  county  he 
had  returned  from  Dalaradia,  St.  Patrick  prepared,  on  the  ap- 
proach of  Easter,  to  risk  the  bold,  and  as  it  proved,  politic  step 
of  celebrating  that  great  Christian  festival  in  the  very  neigh- 
bourhood of  Tara,  where  the  Princes  and  States  of  the  whole 
kingdom  were  to  be  about  that  time  assembled.  Taking  leave 
of  his  new  friend  Dicho,  he  set  sail  with  his  companions,  and 
steering  southwards  arrived  at  the  harbour,  now  called  Colp, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Boyne.  There  leaving  his  boat,  he  pro- 
ceeded with  his  party  to  the  Plain  of  Breg,  in  which  the  an- 
cient city  of  Tara  was  situated.  In  the  course  of  his  journey, 
a  youth  of  family  whom  he  baptized,  and  to  whom,  on  account 
of  the  kindly  qualities  of  his  nature,  he  gave  the  name  of 
Benignus,  conceived  such  an  affection  for  him  as  to  insist  on 
being  the  companion  of  his  way.  This  enthusiastic  youth  be- 
came afterwards  one  of  his  most  favourite  disciples,  and,  on 
his  death,  succeeded  him  as  bishop  of  Armagh. 

On  their  arrival  at  Slane,  the  Saint  and  his  companions 
pitched  their  tents  for  the  night,  and  as  it  was  the  eve  of  the 
festival  of  Easter,  lighted  at  night-fall  tlie  paschal  fire.*  It 
happened  that,  on  the  same  evening,  the  monarch  Leogaire 
and  the  assembled  princes  were,  according  to  custom,  celebrat- 
ing the  pagan  festival  of  La  Bealtinnef ;  and  as  it  was  a  law 
that  no  fires  should  be  lighted  on  that  night,  till  the  great  pile 
in  the  palace  of  Tara  was  kindled,  the  paschal  fire  of  St.  Pat- 

*  "According  to  the  ancient,  as  well  as  the  modern  ecclesiastical  liturgy, 
fire  was  to  be  struck  and  lighted  up,  witli  solemn  prayers  and  ceremonies,  on 
Easter  Eve,  which  fire  was  to  be  kept  burning  in  the  church  lamps  till  tlie 
eve  of  Good  Friday  in  the  ensuing  year." — JUilner^s  Inquiry,  &c. 

t  "  Anciently,  their  times  of  repast  were  for  the  most  part  in  the  evening ; 
from  which  custom  that  solemn  feast  at  which  Laogair,  King  of  Ireland,  en- 
tertained all  the  orders  of  the  kingdom  at  Tarah,  ann.  455,  is  in  the  Ulster 
annals  called  the  Coena  Temrre,  the  Supper  of  Tarah ;  and  it  is  remarkable 
that  from  this  supper  historians  have  fixed  an  era  for  the  latter  part  of  the 
times  of  that  monarch's  administration."— Tf^are's  Antiquities. 


ST.  PATRICK.  187 

rick,  on  being  seen  from  the  heights  of  Tara,  before  that  of 
the  monarch,  excited  the  wonder  of  all  assembled.  To  the 
angry  inquiries  of  Leogaire,  demanding  who  could  have  dared 
to  violate  thus  the  law,  his  Magi  or  Druids  are  said  to  have 
made  answer : — "  This  fire,  which  has  now  been  kindled  before 
our  eyes,  unless  extinguished  this  very  night,  will  never  be 
extinguished  throughout  all  time.  Moreover,  it  will  tower  above 
all  the  fires  of  our  ancient  rites,  and  he  who  lights  it  will  ere 
long  scatter  your  kingdom."*  Surprised  and  indignant,  the 
monarch  instantly  dispatched  messengers  to  summon  the  of- 
fender to  his  presence ;  the  princes  seated  themselves  in  a 
circle  upon  the  grass  to  receive  him ;  and,  on  his  arrival,  one 
alone  among  them.  Here,  the  son  of  Dego,  impressed  with 
reverence  by  the  stranger's  appearance,  stood  up  to  salute 
him. 

That  they  heard,  with  complacency,  however,  his  account  of 
the  objects  of  his  mission,  appears  fi:om  his  preaching  at  the 
palace  of  Tara,  on  the  following  day,  in  the  presence  of  the 
king  and  the  States-General,  and  maintaining  an  argument 
against  the  most  learned  of  the  Druids,  in  which  the  victory 
was  on  his  side.  It  is  recorded,  that  the  only  person  who, 
upon  this  occasion,  rose  to  welcome  him  was  the  arch-poet 
Dubtach,  who  became  his  convert  on  that  very  day,  and  de- 
voted, thenceforth,  his  poetical  talents  to  religious  subjects 
alone.f  The  monarch  himself,  too,  while  listening  to  the 
words  of  the  apostle,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  to  his  surround- 
ing nobles,  "It  is  better  that  I  should  believe  than  die;" — 
and,  appalled  by  the  awful  denouncements  of  the  preacher,  to 
have  at  once  professed  himself  Christian. 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  the  king  Leogaire,  with  that 
spirit  of  tolerance  which  then  pervaded  all  ranks,  and  so  sin- 
gularly smoothed  the  way  to  the  reception  of  the  Gospel  in 
Ireland,  gave  full  leave  to  the  Saint  to  promulgate  his  new 

*  Hie  ignis  quem  videmug,  nisi  extinctus  fuerit  hac  nocte,  non  extinguetur 
in  aeturnum  ;  insuper  et  onines  ignes  nostrse  consuetudinis  super  excellet ;  et 
ille  qui  incendit  ilium,  regnuni  tuum  dissipabit.— ProfiMs,  5".  Patric.  Vita, 
lib.  i.  c.  35. 

t  Carmina  quce  quondam  peregit  in  laudem  falsorum  deorum  jam  in  usum 
nieliorum  mutans  et  linguam,  poemata  clariora  composuit  in  laudem  Omni- 
potentis. — Jocelin. 

Some  writings  under  the  name  of  this  poet  are  to  be  found  in  the  Irish 
collections.  "An  elegant  hymn  of  his,  (says  Mr.  O'Reilly)  addressed  to  the 
Almighty,  is  preserved  in  the  Felire  Aenguis,  or  Account  of  the  Festivals 
of  the  Church,  written  by  Angus  Ceile-De,  in  the  latter  end  of  the  eighth 
century."  There  is  also  in  the  Book  of  Rights  a  very  old  poem  attributed 
to  him,  in  which  he  thus  asserts  the  supremacy  of  his  art:— "There  is  no 
right  of  visitation  or  headship  (superiority)  over  the  truly  learned  poet."— 
Trans.  Iberno-Cclt,  Society. 


188  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

creed  to  the  people,  on  .condition  of  his  not  infringing  the  laws 
or  peace  of  the  kingdom.  But  that  either  himself,  or  his  queen, 
had  enlisted  among  the  converts,  there  appears  strong  reason 
to  question.  In  adducing  instances  of  the  great  success  with 
which  God  had  blessed  his  mission,  the  Saint  makes  mention 
of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men  of  rank,  who,  he  boasts,  had 
embraced  the  faith ;  but,  with  respect  to  the  conversion  of  the 
king  or  queen,  he  maintains  a  total  silence.  It  has  been,  in- 
deed, in  the  higher  regions  of  society  that,  from  the  very  com- 
mencement of  Christianity,  its  light  has  always  encountered 
the  most  resisting  medium ;  and,  it  is  plain,  from  the  narrative 
of  St.  Patrick,  that,  while  he  found  the  people  everywhere 
docile  listeners,  his  success  with  the  upper  or  dominant  caste 
was  comparatively  slow  and  limited  ;  nor  does  it  appear  that, 
go  late  as  the  time  when  he  wrote  his  Confession,  the  greater 
part  of  the  kings  and  princes  were  yet  converted. 

Among  the  females  however,  even  of  this  highest  class, 
the  lessons  of  peace  and  humility  which  he  inculcated  were 
always  hailed  with  welcome ;  and  he  describes  one  noble 
young  Scotic  lady,  whom  he  had  baptized,  as  "blessed  and 
most  beautiful."*  To  the  list  of  his  royal  female  converts  are 
to  be  added  the  sisters  Ethnea  and  Fethlimia,  daughters  of  the 
king  Leogaire ;  whom  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with, 
in  the  course  of  a  journey  over  the  plain  of  Connaught,  under 
circumstances  full  of  what  may  be  called  the  poesy  of  real 
life. 

It  was  natural  that  the  dream  of  "  the  Voice  of  the  Irish," 
by  which  his  imagination  had  many  years  before  been  haunted, 
should  now,  in  the  midst  of  events  so  exciting  and  gratifying, 
recur  vividly  to  his  mind  ;  and  we  are  told,  accordinglyf,  that 
a  wish  to  visit  once  more  the  scene  of  that  vision, — to  behold 
the  wood,  beside  the  Western  Sea,  from  whence  the  voices 
appeared  to  come, — concurred  with  other  more  important  ob- 
jects to  induce  him  to  undertake  this  journey  westwards. 
Resting  for  the  night,  on  liis  way,  at  a  fountain  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  royal  residence,  Cruachan,  himself  and  his 
companions  had  begun,  at  day-break,  to  chaunt  their  morning 
service,  when  the  two  young  princesses  coming  to  the  foun- 
tain, at  this  early  hour,  to  bathe,  were  surprised  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  group  of  venerable  persons  all  clothed  in  white  gar- 
ments and  holding  books  in  their  hands.  On  their  inquiring 
who  the  strangers  were,  and  to  what  class  of  beings  they  be- 

*  Et  etiam  una  benedicta  Scotta,  genitiva,  nobilis,  pulcherrima,  adulta 
erat  quam  ego  baptizavi. — Confess . 
t  Jocelin,  cap.  Iv. 


ST.    PATRICK.  189   - 

longed,  whether  celestial,  aerial,  or  terrestrial,  St.  Patrick  avail- 
ed himself  of  the  opportunity  thus  furnished  of  instructing 
them  in  the  nature  of  the  true  God ;  and  while  answering 
their  simple  and  eager  questions  as  to  where  the  God  he  wor- 
shipped dwelt,  whether  in  heaven  or  on  the  earth,  on  moun- 
tains or  in  valleys,  in  the  sea  or  in  rivers,  contrived  to  explain 
to  them  the  leading  truths  of  the  Christian  religion.  Delighted 
with  his  discourse,  the  royal  sisters  declared  their  willingness 
to  conform  to  any  course  of  life  that  would  render  them  ac- 
ceptable to  such  a  God  as  he  announced;  and,  being  then 
baptized  by  the  holy  stranger,  at  the  fountain,  became  in  a  short 
time  after  consecrated  virgins  of  the  church.* 

The  Saint  had,  previously  to  his  leaving  Meath,  attended  the 
celebration  of  the  Taltine  Games,  and  taken  advantage  of  the 
vast  multitudes  there  assembled  to  forward  his  mighty  work  of 
conversion.  In  the  course  of  this  journey,  likewise,  to  Con- 
naught,  he  turned  aside  a  little  from  the  direct  road,  to  visit 
that  frightful  haunt  of  cruelty  and  superstition,  the  Plain  of 
Slaughter,  in  the  county  of  Leitrim,  where,  from  time  imme- 
morial, had  stood  the  Druid  ical  idol  Crom-Cruach,  called  some- 
times also  Cean  Groith,  or  Head  of  the  Sun.  This  image,  to 
which,  as  to  Moloch  of  old,  young  children  were  offered  up  in 
sacrifice,  had  been  an  object  of  worship,  we  are  told,  with 
every  successive  colony  by  which  the  island  had  been  con- 
quered. For  St.  Patrick,  however,  was  reserved  the  glory  of 
destroying  both  idol  and  worship ;  and  a  large  church  was  now 
erected  by  him  in  the  place  where  these  monstrous  rites  had 
been  so  long  solemnized.f 

His  spiritual  labours,  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  are  all  detailed 
with  a  fond  minuteness  by  his  biographers,  and  exhibit,  with 
little  exception,  the  very  same  flow  of  triumphant  success 
which  marked  his  progress  from  the  beginning.  Baptizing 
multitudes  wherever  he  went,  providing  churches  for  the  con- 
gregations thus  formed,  and  ordaining  priests  from  among  his 
disciples,  to  watch  over  them, — his  only  rest  from  these  various 
cares  was  during  a  part  of  the  Lent  season,  when  retiring  alone 
to  the  heights  of  Mount  Eagle|,  or,  as  it  has  been  since  called, 

*  Lives  of  St.  Patrick,  Probus,  Tripartite,  &c. 

t  "  When  we  hear  of  Churches  erected  by  St.  Patrick,  very  many  of 
which  were  certainly  of  much  later  foundation,  we  are  not  to  understand 
such  edifices  as  are  so  called  in  our  days,  but  humble  buildings  made  of 
hurdles  or  wattles,  clay  and  thatch,  according  to  the  ancient  fashion  of 
Ireland,  and  which  could  be  put  together  in  a  very  short  time."— iant^-an, 
chap.  V.  note  74. 

t  Cruachan-aichle,  since  called  Cruach  PAadruic,  (Croagh  Patrick,  in  Mayo) 
that  is,  the  heap  or  mountain  of  St.  Patrick. 


190  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  Mountain  of  St.  Patrick,  he  there  devoted  liimself,  for 
time,  to  fasting  and  solitary  prayer.  While  thus  occupied,  th( 
various  seafow]  and  birds  of  prey  that  would  naturally  he  at 
tracted  to  the  spot,  by  the  sight  of  a  living  creature  in  so  soil- 
tary  a  place+,  were  transformed,  by  the  fancy  of  the  supersti- 
tious,  into  flocks  of  demons  which  came  to  tempt  and  disturl 
the  holy  man  from  his  devotions.  After  this  interval  of  seclu 
sion,  he  proceeded  northwards  to  the  country  then  called  Tira 
malgaidli,  the  modern  barony  of  Tyrawley. 

He  was  now  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  wood  of  Foclut," 
near  the  Ocean,  from  whence  tlie  voices  of  the  Irish  had  called 
to  him  in  his  dream;  and,  whether  good  fortune  alone  was 
concerned  in  effecting  the  accomplishment  of  the  omen,  or,  as 
is  most  likely,  the  thought  that  he  was  specially  appointed  to 
this  place  gave  fresh  impulse  to  his  zeal,  the  signal  success 
which  actually  attended  his  mission  in  this  district  sufficiently 
justified  any  reliance  lie  might  have  placed  upon  the  dream. 
Arriving  soon  after  the  death  of  the  king  of  that  territory,  and 
at  the  moment  when  his  seven  sons,  having  just  terminated  a 
dispute  concerning  the  succession,  were,  together  with  a  great 
multitude  of  people,  collected  on  tlie  occasion,  St.  Patrick  repair- 
ed to  the  assembly,  and,  by  his  preaching,  brought  over  to  the 
faith  of  Christ  not  only  the  seven  princes,  including  the  new  king, 
but  also  twelve  thousand  persons  more,  all  of  whom  he  soon 
after  baptized.  It  is  supposed  that  to  these  western  regions  of 
Ireland  the  Saint  alludes,  in  his  Confession,  where  lie  stated 
that  he  had  visited  remote  districts  where  no  missionary  had 
been  before ; — an  assertion  important,  as  plainly  implying  that, 
in  the  more  accessible  parts  of  the  country,  Christianity  had, 
before  his  time,  been  preached  and  practised. 

From  this  period,  through  the  remainder  of  his  truly  won- 
der-working career,  the  records  of  his  transactions  present  but 
little  variety  ;  his  visits  to  Leinster,  Ulster,  and  Munster  being 
but  repetitions  of  the  course  of  success  we  have  been  contem- 
plating,— a  continuation  of  the  same  ardour,  activity,  and  self- 

*  "  Multitudo  avium  venit  circa  ilium,  ita  ut  non  posset  videre  faciem  cceli 
ct  terra)  ac  maris  propter  aves. 

"  Jocelin  is  the  only  biographer  of  St.  Patrick  that  has  spoken  of  the  expul- 
sion by  him  of  serpents  and  otlier  venomous  creatures  from  Ireland.  From 
his  book  this  story  made  its  way  into  other  tracts,  and  even  into  some  bre^ 
viaries.  Had  such  a  wonderful  circumstance  really  occurred,  it  would  have 
been  recorded  in  our  Annals  and  other  works,  long  before  Jocelin's  time." — 
Lanigan,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  v.  note  108.  The  learned  Colgan,  in  exposing 
the  weakness  of  this  story,  alleges,  that  in  the  most  ancient  documents  of 
Irish  history,  there  is  not  the  least  allusion  to  venomous  animals  having  ever 
been  found  in  this  country. 


ST.  PATRICK.  191 

devotion  on  the  part  of  the  missionary  himself,  and  the  same 
intelligence,  susceptibility,  and  teachableness  on  the  part  of 
most  of  his  hearers. 

Notwithstanding",  however,  the  docile  and  devotional  spirit 
which  he  found  everywhere,  among  the  lower  classes,  and  the 
singular  forbearance  with  which,  among  the  highest,  even  the 
rejecters  of  his  doctrine  tolerated  his  preaching  it,  yet  that  his 
life  was  sometimes  in  danger  appears  from  his  own  statements ; 
and  an  instance  or  two  are  mentioned  by  his  biographers,  where 
the  peril  must  have  been  imminent.*  On  one  of  these  occa- 
sions he  was  indebted  for  his  life  to  the  generosity  of  his  cha- 
rioteer, Odran ;  who,  hearing  of  the  intention  of  a  desperate 
chieftain,  named  Failge,  to  attack  the  Saint  when  on  his  way 
through  the  King's  County,  contrived,  under  the  pretence  of 
being  fatigued,  to  induce  his  master  to  take  the  driver's  seat, 
and  so,  being  mistaken  for  St.  Patrick,  received  the  lance  of 
the  assassin  in  his  stead. f  The  dcatli  of  this  charioteer  is 
made  more  memorable  by  the  remarkable  circumstance,  that 
he  is  the  only  martyr  on  record  who,  in  the  course  of  this 
peaceful  crusade  in  Ireland,  fell  a  victim  by  the  hands  of  an 
Irishman.  On  another  occasion,  while  visiting  Locale,  tlie 
scene  of  his  earliest  labours,  a  design  was  formed  against  his 
life  by  the  captain  of  a  band  of  robbers,  which  he  not  only 
baffled  by  his  intrepidity  and  presence  of  mind,  but  succeeded 
in  converting  the  repentant  bandit  into  a  believer.  Full  of 
compunction,  this  man,  whose  name  was  Maccaldus,  demanded 
of  St.  Patrick  what  form  of  penance  he  ought  to  undergo  for 
his  crimes ;  and  the  nature  of  the  task  which  the  Saint  im- 
posed upon  him  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  enterprising  cast 
of  his  own  mind.  TJie  penitent  was  to  depart  from  Ireland 
immediately ;  to  trust  himself,  alone,  to  the  waves,  in  a  leathern 
boat,  and  taking  with  him  nothing  but  a  coarse  garment,  land 
on  the  first  shore  to  which  the  wind  might  bear  him,  and  there 
devote  himself  to  the  service  of  God.     This  command  was 

*  In  his  Confession,  the  Saint  makes  mention  of  the  sufferings  of  himself 
and  followers,  and  of  "  the  precautions  he  took  against  giving  occasion  to  a 
general  persecution,  using,  among  other  means,  that  of  making  presents  to 
the  unconverted  kings,  some  of  wliom,  however,  while  obstinate  themselves, 
allowed  their  sons  to  follow  him  :— "  Interim  prismia,"  he  says,  "dabam  regi- 
bus  proter  quod  dabam  mercedem  filliis  ipsorum  qui  mecum  ambulant,  et 
nihil  comprehenderunt  me  cum  comitibus  meis." 

\  Among  the  specimens  of  Irish  manuscripts  given  by  Astle,  there  is  one 
from  a  tract  relating  to  this  event : — "  This  specimen,"  says  the  writer,  "is 
taken  from  an  ancient  jnanuscript  of  two  tracts,  relating  to  the  old  municipal 
laws  of  Ireland.  The  first  contains  the  trial  of  Enna,  brother  of  Laogarius, 
chief  king  of  Ireland,  for  the  murder  of  Oraine,  (Odran)  chariot-driver  of  St. 
Patrick,  before  Dumpthac,  (Dubtach)  the  king's  chief  bard,  and  the  sentence 
passed  thereon,  about  the  year  430." 


192  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 


sle  oi| 


obeyed ;  and  it  is  added  that,  wafted  by  the  wind  to  the  Isle 
Man,  Maccaldus  found  there  two  holy  bishops,  by  whom  he" 
was  most  kindly  received,  and  who  directed  him  in  his  peni- 
tential works  with  so  much  spiritual  advantage,  that  he  suc- 
ceeded them  in  the  bishopric  of  the  island,  and  became  re- 
nowned for  his  sanctity. 

The  most  active  foes  St.  Patrick  had  to  encounter  were  to 
be  found  naturally  among  those  Magi  or  Druids,  who  saw  in 
the  system  he  was  introducing  the  downfall  of  their  own  reli- 
gion and  power.  An  attempt  made  against  his  life,  shortly 
before  his  grand  work  of  conversion  in  Tyrawley,  is  said  to 
have  originated  among  that  priesthood,  and  to  have  been  avert- 
ed only  by  the  interference  of  one  of  the  convert  princes. 
Among  the  civil  class  of  the  Literati,  however,  his  holy  cause 
found  some  devoted  allies.  It  has  been  already  seen  that  the 
arch-poet  Dubtacth  became  very  early  a  convert ;  and  we  find 
the  Saint,  in  the  course  of  a  journey  through  Leinster,  paying 
a  visit  to  this  bard's  residence,  in  Hy-Kinsellagh,  and  consult- 
ing with  him  upon  matters  relating  to  the  faith.  The  arch- 
poet's  disciple,  too,  Fiech,  was  here  admitted  to  holy  orders  by 
St.  Patrick,  and,  becoming  afterwards  bishop  of  Sletty,  left  be- 
hind him  a  name  as  distinguished  for  piety  as  for  learning. 

The  event,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Saint  addressed  his 
indignant  letter  to  Coroticus,  the  only  authentic  writing,  be- 
sides the  Confession,  we  have  from  his  hand,  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  place  during  his  stay  on  the  Munster  coast,  about  the 
year  450.*  A  British  prince,  named  Coroticus,  who,  though 
professing  to  be  a  Christian,  was  not  the  less,  as  appears  from 
his  conduct,  a  pirate  and  persecutor,  had  landed  with  a  party 
of  armed  followers,  while  St.  Patrick  was  on  the  coast,  and  set 
about  plundering  a  large  district  in  which,  on  the  very  day 
before,  the  Saint  liad  baptized  and  confirmed  a  vast  number  of 
converts.!  Having  murdered  several  of  these  persons,  the 
pirates  carried  off  a  considerable  number  of  captives,  and  then 
sold  them  as  slaves  to  the  Picts  and  Scots,  who  were  at  that 
time  engaged  in  their  last  joint  excursion  into  Britain.    A  let- 

*  In  the  chronology  of  the  events  of  St.  Patrick's  life,  I  have  throughout 
followed  Dr.  Lanigan,  than  whom,  in  all  respects,  there  cannot  be  a  more 
industrious  or  trustworthy  guide. 

t"De  sanguine  innocentium  Christianorum,  quos  ego  innumeros  Deo 
genui,  atque  in  Christo  confirmavi,  postera  die  qua  chrisma  neophyti  in 
veste  Candida  flagrabat  in  fronte  ipsorum."— Cow/ess. 

"  We  have  here,  in  a  few  words,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  an  exact  description 
of  the  ancient  discipline,  according  to  which  the  sacrament  of  confirmation 
or  chrism  used  to  be  administered  immediately  after  baptism  by  the  bishop, 
in  case  he  were  the  baptizer  or  present  on  the  occasion.  We  see  also  the 
white  garment  of  the  newly  baptized." 


ST.  PATRICK.  193 

ter  dispatched  by  the  Saint  to  the  marauders,  requesting  them 
to  restore  the  baptized  captives,  and  part  of  the  booty,  having" 
been  treated  by  them  with  contumely,  he  found  himself  under 
the  necessity  of  forthwith  issuing  the  solemn  epistle  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  in  which,  denouncing  Coroticus  and  his  fol- 
Jowers  as  robbers  and  murderers,  he,  in  his  capacity  of  "  Bishop 
established  in  Ireland,"  declares  them  to  be  excommunicated. 

Having  now  preached  through  all  the  provinces,  and  filled 
the  greater  part  of  the  island  with  Christians  and  with  church- 
es, St.  Patrick  saw  that  the  fit  period  was  now  arrived  for  the 
consolidation  of  the  extensive  hiera,rchy  he  had  thus  construct- 
ed, by  the  establishment  of  a  metropolitical  see.  In  selecting 
the  district  of  Macha  for  the  seat  of  the  primacy,  he  was  influ- 
enced, doubtless,  by  the  associations  connected  with  that  place, 
as  an  ancient  royal  residence, — the  celebrated  Palace  of  Ema- 
nia  having  stood  formerly  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  eminence 
upon  which  Ardmacha,  or  Armagh,  afterwards  rose.  The  time 
of  the -foundation  of  this  see  by  St.  Patrick  has  been  variously 
stated ;  but  the  opinion  of  those  who  place  it  late  in  his  career, 
besides  being  equally  borne  out  by  evidence,  seems  by  far  the 
most  consonant  with  reason ;  as  it  is  not  probable  that  he  would 
have  set  about  establishing  a  metropolitical  see  for  all  Ireland, 
until  he  had  visited  the  various  provinces,  ascertained  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Gospel  in  each,  and  regulated  accordingly  their 
ecclesiastical  concerns.  It  may  be  remarked,  that  Ware  and 
other  writers,  who  give  to  this  see  the  designation  of  archi- 
episcopal,  and  style  St.  Patrick  an  archbishop,  have  been  guilty 
of  a  slight  anachronism ;  as  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  the 
eighth  century  that  the  title  of  archbishop  was  known  in  Ire- 
land. It  was,  indeed,  in  all  countries  a  term  of  rather  late 
adoption, — St.  Athanasius  being,  I  rather  think,  the  first  writer 
in  whose  works  it  is  found. 

The  see  of  Armagh  being  now  established,  and  the  great 
bulk  of  the  nation  won  over  to  the  faith,  St.  Patrick,  resting 
in  the  midst  of  the  spiritual  creation  he  had  called  up  round 
him,  passed  the  remainder  of  his  days  between  Armagh  and 
his  favourite  retreat,  at  Sabhul,  in  the  barony  of  Lecale, — that 
spot  which  had  witnessed  the  first  dawn  of  his  apostolical  ca- 
reer, and  now  shared  in  the  calm  glories  which  surrounded  its 
Getting.  Among  the  many  obvious  fables  with  which  even  the 
best  of  the  ancient  records  of  his  life  abound,  is  to  be  reckoned 
the  account  of  his  journey  to  Rome,  after  the  foundation  of 
Armagh,  with  the  view  of  obtaining,  as  is  alleged,  from  the 
pope,  a  confirmation  of  its  metropolitical  privileges,  and  also 
of  procuring  a  supply  of  relics.     This  story,  invented,  it  is 

Vol.  I.  17 


194  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

plain,  to  dignify  and  lend  a  lustre  to  some  relics  shown  in  later 
times  at  Armagh,  is  wholly  at  variance  with  the  Saint's  writ- 
ten testimony,  which  proves  him  constantly  to  have  remained 
in  Ireland,  from  the  time  when  he  commenced  his  mission  in 
the  barony  of  Lecale,  to  the  last  day  of  his  life.  In  the  docu- 
ment here  referred  to,  which  was  written  after  the  foundation 
of  Armagh,  he  declares  expressly  that  the  Lord  "  had  com- 
manded him  to  come  among  the  Irish,  and  to  stay  with  them 
for  the  remainder  of  his  life." 

Among  the  last  proceedings  recorded  of  him,  he  is  said  to 
have  held  some  synods  at  Armagh,  in  which  canons  were  de- 
creed, and  ecclesiastical  matters  regulated.  Of  the  canons 
attributed  to  these  early  Synods,  there  are  some  pronounced  to 
be  of  a  much  later  date,  while  of  others  the  authenticity  has 
been,  by  high  and  critical  authority,  admitted.* 

The  impression  that  his  death  was  not  far  distant,  appears  to 
have  been  strong  on  the  Saint's  mind  wlien  he  wrote  his  Con- 
fession, the  chief  object  of  wliich  was,  to  inform  his  relatives, 
and  others  in  foreign  nations,  of  the  redeeming  change  which 
God,  through  his  ministry,  had  worked  in  the  minds  of  the 
Irish.  With  this  view  it  was  that  he  wrote  his  parting  com- 
munication in  Latin,  tliough  fully  aware,  as  he  himself  acknow- 
ledges, liow  rude  and  imperfect  was  his  mode  of  expressing 
himself  in  that  tongue,  from  the  constant  habit  he  had  been  in, 
for  so  many  years,  of  speaking  no  language  but  Irish. 

In  his  retreat  at  Sabhul,  the  venerable  Saint  was 
^g- *  seized  with  his  last  illness.  Perceiving  that  death  was 
near  at  hand,  and  wishing  tliat  Armagh,  as  the  seat  of 
his  own  peculiar  see,  should  be  the  resting-place  of  his  remains, 
he  set  out  to  reach  tliat  spot ;  but  feeling,  on  his  way,  some 
inward  warnings,  which  the  fancy  of  tradition  has  converted 
into  the  voice  of  an  angel,  commanding  him  to  return  to  Sab- 
hul, as  the  place  appointed  for  his  last  hour,  he  went  back  to 
that  retreat,  and  tiiere,  about  a  week  after,  died,  on  the  17th 
of  March,  a.  d.  465,  having  then  reached,  according  to  the 
most  consistent  hypothesis  on  the  subject,  his  seventy-eighth 
year.  No  sooner  had  the  news  spread  throughout  Ireland  that 
the  great  apostle  was  no  more,  than  the  clergy  flocked  from  all 
quarters  to  Sabhul,  to  assist  in  solemnizing  his  obsequies ;  and 
as  every  bishop,  or  priest,  according  as  he  arrived,  felt  natu- 

*  Several  of  these  canons  appear  to  have  been  drawn  up  at  a  time  when 
Paganism  was  not  yet  extinct  in  Ireland.  Thus,  among  the  canons  of  the 
eynod  of  Patrick,  Auxilius,  and  Esserninus,  the  eighth  begins  thus,— "Cler- 
icus  si  pro  gentili  in  Ecclesiam  recipi  non  licet ;"  and  in  the  fourteenth, 
"  Christianus  qui  .  .    .  more  Qentilium.  ad  aruspicem  meaverit." 


DEATH    OF    ST.  PATRICK.  195 

rally  anxious  to  join  in  honouring  the  dead  by  the  celebration 
of  the  holy  mysteries,  the  rites  were  continued  without  inter- 
ruption through  day  and  night.  To  psalmody  and  the  chanting 
of  hymns  the  hours  of  the  night  were  all  devoted ;  and  so  great 
was  the  pomp,  and  the  profusion  of  torches  kept  constantly 
burning,  that,  as  those  who  describe  the  scene  express  it,  dark- 
ness was  dispelled,  and  the  whole  time  appeared  to  be  one  con- 
stant day. 

In  the  choice  of  a  successor  to  the  see  there  could  be  no 
delay  nor  difficulty,  as  the  eyes  of  the  Saint  himself,  and  of  all 
who  were  interested  in  the  appointment,  had  long  been  fixed 
on  his  disciple  Benignus,  as  the  person  destined  to  succeed  him. 
It  was  remembered  that  he  had,  in  speaking  of  this  disciple 
when  but  a  boy,  said,  in  the  language  rather  of  prophecy  than 
of  appointment,  "  He  will  be  the  heir  of  my  power."  Some 
writers  even  assert,  that  the  see  was  resigned  by  him  to  Be- 
nignus soon  after  the  foundation  of  Armagh.  But  there  appear 
little  grounds  for  this  assertion,  and,  according  to  the  most  con- 
sistent accounts,  Benignus  did  not  become  bishop  of  Armagh 
till  after  St.  Patrick's  death. 

Besides  the  natives  of  Ireland  contemporary  with  our  Saint, 
of  whom,  in  this  sketch  of  his  life,  some  notice  has  been  taken, 
there  were  also  other  distinguished  Irishmen,  of  the  same  pe- 
riod, whom  it  would  not  be  right  to  pass  over  in  silence.  Among 
the  names,  next  to  that  of  the  apostle  himself,  illustrious,  are 
those  of  Ailbe,  "another  Patrick,"  as  he  was  fondly  styled,  the 
pious  Declan,  and  Ibar;,all  disciples  of  St.  Patrick,  and  all 
memorable,  as  primitive  fathers  of  the  Irish  church.  To  Se- 
cundinus,  the  first  bishop*,  as  it  is  said,  who  died  in  Ireland 
(a.  d.  448),  is  attributed  a  Latin  poem  or  hymn  in  honour  of 
St.  Patrick,  in  which  the  Saint  is  mentioned  as  still  alive,  and 
of  whose  authenticity  some  able  critics  have  seen  no  reason 
whatever  to  doubt,  f  There  is  also  another  hymn,  upon  the 
same  subject,  in  the  Irish  language,  said  to  have  been  written 
by  Fiech,  the  disciple  of  the  poet  Dubdacht,  but  which,  though 
very  ancient^  is  evidently  the  production  of  a  somewhat  later 
period. 

While  these  pious  persons  were,  in  ways  much  more  effec- 

*  This  bishop  was  sent,  in  the  year  439,  together  with  two  others,  to  aid 
St.  Patrick  in  his  mission  ;  as  we  find  thus  recorded  in  the  Annals  .of  Inis- 
fallen  :— "  Secundinus  et  Auxiliarius  (Auxilius),  et  Esserninus  mittuntur  in 
auxiliura  Patricii,  nee  tamen  tenuerunt  apostolatum,  nisi  Patricius  solus." 

t  "  I  find  no  reason,"  sa}'s  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  for  not  considering  it  a  genuine 
work  of  Secundinus." 

The  strophes  of  this  hymn,  consisting  each  of  four  lines,  begin  with  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet ;  the  first  strophe  commencing,  "  Audite  omnes  aman- 
tes  Deum  ;"  and  the  last,  "  Zona  Domini  prtecinctus." 


196 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


tive  than  by  the  composition  of  such  dry,  metrical  legends, 
vancing  the  Christian  cause  in  Ireland,  a  far  loftier  flight  of 
sacred  song  was,  at  the  same  time,  adventured  by  an  Irish 
writer  abroad,  the  poet  Shiel,  or  (as  his  name  is  Latinised) 
Sedulius*,  who  flourished  in  this  centuryf,  and,  among  other 
writings  of  acknowledged  merit,  was  the  author  of  a  spirited 
Iambic  poem  upon  the  life  of  Christ,  from  which  the  Catholic 
church  has  selected  some  of  her  most  beautiful  hymns.f 

*  There  has  been  some  controversy  respecting  our  claims  to  this  poet,  who, 
it  is  alleged,  has  been  confounded  with  another  writer,  of  the  same  name,  in 
the  ninth  century,  universally  admitted  to  have  been  an  Irishman.  The 
reader  will  find  the  question  sifted,  with  his  usual  industry,  by  Bayle  (art. 
Sedulius).  Among  the  numerous  authorities  cited  by  Usher,  in  favour  of  our 
claim  to  this  poet,  the  title  prefixed  to  a  work  generally  attributed  to  him 
(Annotations  on  Paul's  Epistles),  would  seem  decisive  of  the  question  :— 
"  Sedulii  Scoti  Hyberniensis  in  omnes  Epistolas  Pauli  Collectaneum."  The 
name,  Sedulius,  too,  written  in  Irish  Siedhuil,  and  said  to  be  the  same  as 
Shiel,  is  one  peculiar,  we  are  told,  to  Ireland,  no  instance  of  its  use  being 
found  in  any  other  country.  By  English  scholars,  it  will,  I  fear,  be  thought 
another  strong  Irish  characteristic  of  this  poet,  that  he  sometimes  erred  in 
prosody.  "  Dictio  Sedulii,"  says  Borrichius,  "  facilis,  ingeniosa,  numerosa, 
perspicua,  sic  satis  munda— si  excipias  prosodica  quadara  delicta."— Z)mcr- 
tat.  de  Poet. 

In  praising  the  Paschalc  Optis  of  Sedulius,  pope  Gelasius  had  described  it 
as  written  "  heroicis  versibus  ;"  but,  by  an  unlucky  clerical  error,  the  word 
"  hereticis"  was,  in  the  course  of  time,  substituted  for  "heroicis,"  which 
brought  our  Irish  poet  into  much  disgrace  at  Rome,  and  led  some  canonists, 
it  is  said,  to  the  wise  decision,  "  Omnia  poemata  esse  heretica." 

t  Not  content  with  the  honour  of  contributing,  thus  early,  so  great  an  or- 
nament to  foreign  literature,  some  of  our  writers  have  represented  Sedulius 
as  producing  his  poems  in  Ireland  ;  and  referred  to  his  classical  knowledge 
as  evidence  of  the 'stale  of  literature  in  that  country.  Thus  O'Halloran  :— 
"  That  poetry  was  passionately  cultivated  in  our  schools,  and  classical 
poetry  too,  I  have  but  to  refer  to  the  writings  of  the  famous  Sedulius."— 
Vol.  iii.  chap.  7.  Even  Mr.  D'Alton  has  allowed  himself  to  be  tempted  by 
his  zeal  for  Ireland  into  an  encouragement  of  the  same  delusion.  "The 
treasures  of  Roman  lore,"  he  says,  "  were  profitably  spread  over  the  country : 
the  MTitings  of  Sedulius  testify  that  classic  poetry  was  cultivated  at  a  very 
early  period  in  Ireland." 

J  The  Paschale  Opus  of  Sedulius  is  in  heroic  metre,  and  extended  through 
five  books.  His  Iambic  Hymn,  which  has  been  unaccountably  omitted  by 
Usher,  in  his  Sylloge,  commences  thus,— 

"  A  solis  ortus  cardine, 
Ad  usque  terrse  limitem." 


''^^      ^^       -^ 

Library^ 

9f  Qtmurl*- 


STATE    OF   THE    SCOTS    IN    BRITAIN.  197 

CHAPTER  XL 

STATE  OF  THE  SCOTS  IN  BRITAIN— PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

It  has  been  seen,  from  the  letter  of  St.  Patrick  to  Coroticus, 
that,  so  late  as  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  incursions 
of  the  Picts  and  Scots  into  the  territories  of  the  Britons  had  not 
yet  been  discontinued.  About  the  commencement  of 
the  same  century  Britain  had  ceased  to  form  a  portion  ^qq' 
of  the  Roman  empire ;  the  separation,  according  to 
some  opinions,  having  been  voluntary  on  the  part  of  Britain*, 
while  far  more  obviously  it  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  en- 
feebled state  of  the  Roman  power,  which  rendered  the  occupa- 
tion of  so  remote  a  province  no  longer  practicable.  How  little 
prepared  were  the  Britons  themselves  for  independence,  at  this 
period,  appears  from  the  helplessness  of  their  struggle  against 
the  aggressions  of  their  neighbours,  and  the  piteous  entreaties 
for  aid  so  often  addressed  by  them  to  Rome ;  while  the  prompt 
attention,  as  far  as  the  resources  of  the  sinking  empire  would 
admit,  which  these  appeals  generally  received,  proves  the  re- 
luctance with  which  the  connexion  was  then  severed  to  have 
been  mutual. 

In  consequence  of  their  urgent  solicitations  to  Honorius,  that 
emperor  dispatched  to  the  aid  of  the  Britons  a  single  legion, 
which,  for  a  time,  suspended  the  attacks  of  their  invaders ;  but 
no  sooner  was  this  legion  withdrawn  for  the  protection  of  Gaul, 
than  again  the  Scots  and  Picts,  breaking  through  the  now  un- 
regarded wall  of  Severus,  or  else  sailing  around  the  ends,  car- 
ried their  ravages  into  the  very  heart  of  Britain.  Once  more, 
the  interference  of  the  Romans  succeeded  in  turning  aside  this 
scourge.  Ambassadors,  sent  from  the  suffering  province  to' 
Valentinian,  and  appearing  before  him,  as  is  said,  with  their 
garments  rent,  and  sand  strewed  over  their  headsf,  so  far  ex- 
cited the  emperor's  pity,  that  a  last  effort  was  made  for  them, 
and  a  force,  under  the  command  of  Gallio  of  Ravenna,  dis- 
patched seasonably  to  their  relief  As  in  all  the  preceding 
cases,  however,  the  interposition  was  but  temporary.  The  Ro- 
man general,  summoned  away,  with  the  whole  of  his  force,  to 
repress  rebellion  in  Africa,  announced  to  the  Britons  that  they 

*  Dr.  Lingard  has  followed  Gibbon  in  asserting,  on  no  other  authority  than 
a  few  words  of  Zosimus,  that  the  Britons  at  this  time  vohintarily  threw  oft* 
their  allegiance.  But  the  force  of  evidence,  as  well  as  of  probability,  is  all 
opposed  to  such  a  supposition. 

t  "  Itemque  mittuntur  queruli  Legati,  scissis,  ut  dicitnr,  vestibus,  oper- 
tisque  sablone  capitibus,  impetrantes  a  Romanis  auxilia,"  &:.c.—Oildas. 

17* 


198  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

must  thenceforward  look  to  their  own  defence ;  and,  from  that 
period,  the  imperial  protection  was  entirely  withdrawn  from 
the  island.  No  sooner  had  the  Romans  taken  their  departure 
than  the  work  of  rapine  recommenced ;  and,  as  the  historian 
of  these  Devastations  expresses  it,  "foul  droves  of  Picts  and 
Scots  emerged  from  out  their  currachs,  just  as,  when  the  sun 
is  at  his  burning  height,  dark  battalions  of  reptiles  are  seen  to 
crawl  from  out  their  earth-holes."*  Both  in  this  writer  and  in 
Bede  we  find  the  most  frightful  representations  of  the  state  of 
misery  to  which  the  Britains  were  now  reduced  by  the  "  anni- 
versary" visitations  of  their  spoilers.f 

^  ^  ,  From  the  period  of  Gallio's  command,  during  which 
426*  ^^  erected,  between  the  Solway  and  Tyne,  the  last 
and  most  important  of  all  the  Roman  walls,  we  hear  no 
more  of  tlie  sufferings  of  the  Britons  till  the  time  when  St. 
Patrick  addressed  his  letter  to  Coroticus,  and  when  that  last 
great  irruption  of  the  Picts  and  Scots  took  place,  which  drove 
the  Britons  at  length,  in  their  despair,  to  invoke  the  perilous 
protection  of  the  Saxons.  It  was  in  the  extremity  to  which 
they  had  then  found  themselves  reduced,  that,  looking  again  to 
the  Romans,  they  addressed  to  yEtius,  the  popular  captain  of 
the  day,  that  memorable  letter  inscribed  "  The  Groans  of  the 
Britons."  But  the  standard  of  Attila  was  then  advancing  to- 
wards Gaul,  and  all  the  force  of  the  empire  was  summoned  to 
oppose  his  progress.  Rome,  prodigal  so  long  of  her  strength 
to  others,  now  trembled  for  her  own  safety ;  and  the  ravagers 
of  Britain  were,  accordingly,  left  to  enjoy  their  prey  undis- 
turbed. 

By  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons,  the  balance  of  fortune  was  soon 
turned  the  other  way;  and  the  Scots  and  Picts  became,  in 
their  turn,  the  vanquished.  To  the  unhappy  Britons,  however, 
this  success  brought  but  a  change  of  evils;  as  their  treacher- 
ous allies,  having  first  helped  them  to  expel  the  Scots  and 
Picts,  then  made  use  of  the  latter,  as  auxiliaries,  to  crush  and 
subjugate  the  Britons.  In  all  these  transactions  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered, that  under  the  general  name  of  Scots  are  compre- 
hended not  merely  the  descendants  of  the  Irish  colony,  long 

*  "  Itaqufi  illis  ad  sua  revertentibus,  emergunt  certatini  de  Curicis  quibus 
sunt  trans  Scythicatn  vallem  vecti,  quasi  in  alto  Titane,  incalescentesque 
caumate,  de  arctissirnis  foraminum  cavernulis,  fusci  vermiculorum  cunei, 
tctri  Scotoruni  Pictorumque  greges,"  &c. — Oilda?. 

For  the  purpose  of  representing  his  countrymen,  in  ancient  times,  as 
Troglodytes,  the  reverend  antiquary,  Ledwich,  has  not  hesitated  to  separate 
the  simile  in  this  passage  from  the  context,  and  to  produce  it  as  evidence 
that  the  Irish  at  that  time  lived  in  earth-holes. 

t  duia  anniversarias  avide  prredas,  nullo  obsistenlc,  trans  maria  exag- 
gerabant.— OiWas,  c.  14. 


KING   LEOGAIRE.  199 

settled  in  North  Britain,  but  also  the  native  Scots  of  Ireland 
themselves,  who  were  equally  concerned  in  most  of  these  ex- 
peditions ;  and  who,  however  contemptuously,  as  we  have  seen, 
Gildas  has  affected  to  speak  of  their  currachs,  had  already  fit- 
ted out  two  naval  armaments  sufficiently  notorious  to  be  com- 
memorated by  the  great  poet  of  Rome's  latter  days.  The  share 
taken  by  the  Irish,  in  these  irruptions  into  Britain,  is  noticed 
frequently  both  by  Gildas  and  Bede  :— "They  emerge  eagerly," 
says  the  former,  "from  their  currachs,  in  which  they  have 
been  wafled  across  the  Scytic  Valley," — the  name  anciently 
given  to  the  sea  between  Britain  and  Ireland.  "  The  impudent 
Irish  plunderers,"  says  Bede,  "  return  to  their  homes,  only  to 
come  back  again  shortly."* 

Of  the  three  great  "  Devastations"  of  Britain,  recorded  by 
the  former  of  these  writers,  two  had  occurred  in  the  reign  of 
the  monarch  Leogaire,  who  ruled  over  Ireland  at  the  time  of 
St.  Patrick's  mission.  How  far  this  prince  was  concerned  in 
originating,  or  taking  a  personal  share  in  any  of  these  expedi- 
tions, does  not  appear  from  the  records  of  his  long  reign ;  and, 
among  the  domestic  transactions  in  whicli  he  was  engaged,  his 
war  upon  the  Lagenians,  or  people  of  Leinster,  to  enforce  the 
payment  of  the  odious  Boromean  tribute,  seems  alone  to  be 
worthy  of  any  notice.  Defeated  by  the  troops  of  this  province 
in  a  sanguinary  action,  which  v/as  called,  from  the  place  where 
it  occurred,  the  Battle  of  the  Ford  of  the  Oaks,  Leogaire  was 
himself  made  prisoner,  and  regained  his  freedom  only  on  con- 
senting to  swear,  by  the  Sun  and  the  Wind,  that  he  never 
would  again  lay  claim  to  the  payment  of  the  tribute.  This 
solemn  oath,  however,  the  rapacious  monarch  did  not  hesitate 
to  infringe, — his  courtly  Druids  having  conveniently  absolved 
him  from  the  obligation ;  and,  on  his  death  occurring  a  short 
time  after,  it  was  said  that,  to  punish  his  false  appeal  to  their 
divinities,  the  Sun  and  the  Wind  had  destroyed  him.f  This 
Pagan  oath,  and  his  continued  commerce  with  the  Druids,  to 
the  very  year  before  he  died,  shows  that  Leogaire  had  either 

*  Revertuntur  ergo  impudentes  grassatores  Hiberni  domus,  post  non 
longum  tempus  reversuri. 

t  Thus  recorded  in  the  annals  of  the  Four  Masters :— "  A.  D.  457,  anno  29. 
regni  Laogarii  filii  Nialli  Prtelium  Vadi  Gluercuum  gestum  a  Lageniensibus 
contra  Laogarium  filium  Nialli.  Captus  est  Laogarius  in  prselio  isto,  et  ju- 
ravit  jusjurandum  Solis  et  Venti,  et  Elementorura,  Lageniensibus,  non  ven- 
turum  se  contra  eos,  durante  vita,  ob  intentum  istum. 

"A.  D.  458,  postquam  fuisset  30  annis  in  Regimine  Hiberniae  Laogarius 
filius  Nialli  Novi-obsidum,  occisus  est  prope  Cassiam  inter  Erin  et  Alba- 
nian! (i.  e.  duos  colles  qui  sunt  in  regione  Faolan),  et  Sol  et  Ventus  occide- 
runt  eum  quia  temeravit  eos." 


200  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

at  no  time  become  a  Christian,  or  else  had  relapsed  into  Pa- 
ganism.* 

The  fervid  eagerness  and  rapidity  with  which  the  new  faith 
had  been  embraced  wore  so  much  the  appearance  of  that  sort 
of  enthusiasm  which  mere  novelty  often  excites,  that  it  would 
have  seemed  but  in  the  natural  course  of  affairs  had  there  suc- 
ceeded a  lull  to  all  this  excitement,  and  had  such  a  burst  of  re- 
ligious zeal,  throughout  the  great  mass  of  the  people, — depri- 
ved entirely,  as  it  was,  of  the  fuel  which  persecution  always 
ministers, — subsided  speedily  into  that  state  of  languor,  if  not 
of  dangerous  indifference,  in  which  the  uncontested  triumph 
of  human  desires  almost  invariably  ends.  But  in  this,  as  in  all 
other  respects,  the  course  of  the  change  now  worked  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  Ireland  was  peculiar  and  unprecedented ; 
and,  striking  as  were  their  zeal  and  promptitude  in  adopting  the 
new  faith,  the  steady  fervour  with  which  they  now  devoted 
themselves  to  its  doctrines  and  discipline  was  even  still  more 
remarkable.  From  this  period,  indeed,  the  drama  of  Irish 
history  begins  to  assume  an  entirely  different  character.  In- 
stead of  the  furious  strife  of  kings  and  chieflains  forming,  as 
before,  its  main  action  and  interest,  this  stormy  spectacle  gives 
way  to  the  pure  and  peaceful  triumphs  of  religion.  Illustrious 
saints,  of  both  sexes,  pass  in  review  before  our  eyes ; — the  cowl 
and  the  veil  eclipse  the  glory  even  of  the  regal  crown ;  and, 
instead  of  the  grand  and  festive  halls  of  Tara  and  Emania,  the 
lonely  cell  of  the  fasting  penitent  becomes  the  scene  of  fame. 

It  is  to  be  recollected,  however,  that,  through  all  this  pic- 
ture, the  hands  of  ecclesiastics  have  chiefly  guided  the  pencil ; 
and,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  change  effected  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people,  was,  to  a  great  extent,  as 
real  as  it  is  wonderful,  it  was  yet  by  no  means  either  so  deep 
or  so  general  as  on  the  face  of  these  monkish  annals  it  appears. 
While  this  peaceful  pageant  of  saints  and  apostles  so  promi- 
nently occupies  the  foreground,  frequent  glimpses  of  scenes  of 
blood  are  caught  dimly  in  the  distance,  and  the  constant  appeal 
to  the  sword,  and  the  frequent  falling  of  kings  suddenly  from 
their  thrones,  prove  the  ancient  political  liabits  of  the  people 
to  have  experienced  but  little  change.  In  the  page  of  the  an- 
nalist, however,  all  tliis  is  kept  subordinate  or  thrown  into  the 
shade ;  and  while,  for  two  or  three  centuries  after  the  introduc- 
tion of  Christianity,  the  history  of  tlie  Kings  of  Ireland  pre- 

*The  Tripartite  Life  of  St. Patrick  statrs  that  Leocairc  was  not  a  sincere 
believer,  and  that  he  was  accustomed  to  say  his  father  Nial  liad  laid  an  in- 
junction on  him  never  to  embrace  the  Christian  failli,  but  to  adhere  to  the 
gods  of  his  ancestors.    See  Lanigan,  chap.  5.  note  5;}. 


INVASION    AND    CONQUEST    OF    SCOTLAND.  201 

sents  but  a  meagre  list  of  names,  the  acts  of  her  missionaries 
and  her  saints,  and  the  pious  labours  of  her  scholars,  afford  ma- 
terials for  detail  as  abundant  and  minute  as  they  are,  in  many 
instances,  it  must  be  owned,  sterile  and  uninteresting. 

The  only  event  of  high  political  importance,  which  occurs 
through  the  whole  of  this  period,  took  place  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  sixth  century,  not  long  after  the  death  of  St.  Pa- 
trick ;  and  this  was  the  establishment,  under  the  sons  of  Erck, 
of  that  Scotic  or  Irish  monarchy  in  North  Britain,  which  not 
only  extended  its  sway,  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  over 
the  whole  of  the  modern  Scotland,  but  transmitted,  through 
the  race  of  the  Stuarts,  a  long  succession  of  monarchs  to  Great 
Britain.  The  colony  planted  in  those  regions,  by  Carbre  Rieda, 
in  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  though  constantly  fed  with 
supplies  from  the  parent  stock,  the  Dalriadians  of  Antrim,  had 
run  frequent  risks  of  extirpation  from  the  superior  power  of 
their  neighbours  and  rivals,  the  Picts.  In  the  year  503,  how-  - 
ever,  the  Dalriadian  princes  of  Ireland,  aided  by  the  then  all- 
powerful  influence  of  the  Hy-Nial  family,  were  enabled  to 
transplant  a  new  colony  into  North  Britain,  which,  extending 
the  limits  of  the  former  settlement,  set  up  for  the  first  time  a 
regal  authority,  and  became,  in  less  than  a  century,  sufficiently 
powerful  to  shake  off  all  dependence  upon  Ireland.*  The  ter- 
ritory possessed  by  these  original  Scots  appears  to  have  in- 
cluded, in  addition  to  the  Western  Isles,  the  whole  of  the 
mountainous  district  now  called  Argyleshire ;  and  from  the 
time  of  the  erection  of  this  Irish  sovereignty.  North  Britain 
continued,  for  some  centuries,  to  be  divided  between  two  dis- 
tinct monarchies,  the  Scotish  and  the  Pictish  ;  till,  at  length, 
in  the  reign  of  Keneth  Mac-Alpine,  afler  a  long  and  fierce 
struggle,  the  people  of  the  Picts  were  entirely  vanquished,  and 
the  Scots  left  sole  masters  of  the  country. 

The  memorable  migration  of  the  sons  of  Erck  is  marked  by 
the  Irish  annalists  as  having  occurred  twenty  years  afler  the 
great  battle  of  Ocha,  in  which  Olill  Molt,  the  successor  of 
Leogaure  in  the  monarchy  of  Ireland,  was  slain.     This  battle 

*  The  facts  of  the  history  of  this  colony  have  been  thus  well  summed  up 
by  Roy  (Military  Antiq.)  :— 

"  There  is  incontrovertible  authority  to  join  the  Irish  with  the  Picts  iiL 
their  martial  exploits  against  the  Romans,  as  well  from  the  Latin,  as  from 
the  ancient  British  and  Saxon,  writers.  It  is  clear,  not  only  from  all  the 
Scotch  history  we  have  of  the  times,  but  from  Bede,  from  the  most  authentic 
writers  for  an  age  or  two  before  and  after  him,  and  from  the  Roman  writers, 
that  Scotland,  during  the  Roman  domination  in  Britain,  subsisted  under  two 
different  monarchies,  Irish  and  Pictish."  I  have  given  this  passage  as  I  find 
it  cited  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  having  searched  in  vain  for  it  in  the  folio  edition 
of  Roy's  works,  1793. 


nem 
igai' 


202  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

itself,  too,  constituted  an  era  in  Irish  history,  as  the  race  of  thj. 
Nials,  on  whose  side  victory  then  declared,  were,  by  the  fortune" 
of  that  day's"  combat,  rendered  masters  of  all  Ireland.  The 
law  established  in  the  reign  of  Tuathal  confining  the  succed|| 
eion  to  his  own  family,  and  excluding  the  princes  of  the  oth^l 
lines  from  the  monarchy,  was  now  wholly  set  aside ;  and  the 
Hy-Nials,  taking  possession  of  the  supreme  government,  held 
it  uninterruptedly  through  a  course  of  more  than  five  hundre 
years. 

Of  the  two  kings  who  succeeded  Olill  Molt,  namely,  Lu|^ 
and  Murcertach,  the  reign  of  one  extended  to  twenty-five  years, 
and  that  of  the  other  to  twenty-one ;  and  yet  of  the  forme] 
reign  all  that  we  find  recorded  is  the  names  of  some  battlei 
which  signalized  its  course ;  while  of  the  grandson  of  Ercl 
nothing  further  is  commemorated  than  that,  in  a.  d.  534,  h 
fought  five  battles,  and,  in  the  following  year,  was  drowned  i 
.  a  hogshead  of  wine.*  It  is,  however,  but  just  to  add,  that  h 
is  represented  as  a  good  and  pious  sovereign,  and  was  the  fin 
of  the  Irish  monarchs  who  can,  with  any  degree  of  certaintj 
be  pronounced  Christian. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  sixth  century,  Christianity  ha* 
become  almost  universal  throughout  Ireland  ;  and  before  it 
close  her  church  could  boast  of  a  considerable  number  of  hoi 
persons,  whose  fame  for  sanctity  and  learning  has  not  bee: 
confined  to  their  own  country,  but  is  still  cherished  and  hel 
in  reverence  by  the  great  majority  of  the  Christian  work 
Among  these  ornaments  of  a  period  whose  general  want  a 
intellectual  illumination  rendered  its  few  shining  lights  th 
more  conspicuous,  stands  pre-eminently  the  Apostle  of  th( 
Western  Isles,  Columbkill,  who  was  born  in  the  reign  of  Mui 
certach,  about  the  year  521,  and  who,  from  the  great  activit 
and  variety  of  his  spiritual  enterprises,  was  so  mixed  up  wit 
the  public  transactions  of  his  times,  that  an  accoimt  of  his  lif 
and  acts  would  be  found  to  include  within  its  range  all  that 
most  remarkable  in  the  contemporary  history  of  his  country. 

In  citing  for  historical  purposes  the  Lives  of  Saints,  of  what 
ever  age  or  coimtry,  considerable  caution  ought,  of  course, 
be  observed.  But  there  are  writers,  and  those  not  among  th( 
highest,  who,  in  the  pride  of  fancied  wisdom,  affect  a  contemp 
for  this  species  of  evidence,  which  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it 

*  This  royal  event,  as  appears  by  tlie  fragments  on  the  subject  remaininj 
was  commemorated  by  many  of  the  poets  of  that  period.— See  the  Anna! 
of  the  Four  Masters,  ad  ann.  534.  It  is  supposed,  from  tlie  mention  in  mos 
of  the  Lives  of  St.  Columbanus,  of  the  circumstance  of  an  Irish  ship  tradin( 
to  Nantes,  in  the  sixth  century,  that  wine  was  imported  into  Ireland  from 
that  city. 


CONFORMITY  OF  THE  IRISH  CHURCH  TO  ROME.         203 

shallow.  Both  Montesquieu  and  Gibbon*  knew  far  better  how 
to  appreciate  the  true  value  of  such  works,  as  sources  of  his- 
torical information  ;  being  well  aware  that,  in  times  when  per- 
sonages renowned  for  sanctity  held  such  influence  over  all  ranks 
and  classes,  and  were  even  controllers  of  the  thoughts  and 
actions  of  kings,  it  is  often  in  the  private  lives  of  these  spirit- 
ual heroes  alone  that  the  true  moving  springs  of  the  history 
of  their  age  is  to  be  sought. 

Previously  to  entering,  however,  on  any  personal  details 
respecting  either  Columba  or  any  other  of  those  distinguished 
Irishmen  whose  zeal  contributed  so  much  at  this  period,  not 
merely  in  their  own  country,  but  throughout  all  the  British 
Isles,  to  the  general  diffusion  of  Christianity,  it  may  not  be 
irrelevant  to  inquire  briefly  into  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  doc- 
trines which  these  spiritual  successors  of  our  great  apostle 
taught.  An  attempt  has  been  made,  enforced  by  the  learning 
of  the  admirable  Usher,  to  prove  that  the  church  founded  by 
St.  Patrick  in  Ireland  held  itself  independent  of  Rome,  and,  on 
most  of  the  leading  points  of  Christian  doctrine,  professed  the 
opinions  maintained  at  present  by  Protestants.  But  rarely, 
even  in  the  warfare  of  religious  controversy,  has  there  been 
hazarded  an  assertion  so  little  grounded  upon  fact.  In  addition 
to  the  original  link  formed  with  Rome,  from  her  having  ap- 
pointed the  first  Irish  missionaries,  we  find  in  a  canon  of  one 
of  the  earliest  Synods  held  in  Ireland  a  clear  acknowledgment 
of  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  see.  Nor  was  this  recogni- 
tion confined  merely  to  words;  as,  on  the  very  first  serious 
occasion  of  controversy  which  presented  itself, — the  dispute 
relative  to  the  time  of  celebrating  Easter, — it  was  resolved, 
conformably  to   the  words  of  this  canon,  that  "  the  question 

*  "  The -ancient  legendaries,"  says  Gibbon,  "  deserve  some  regard,  as  they 
are  obliged  to  connect  their  fables  with  the  real  history  of  their  own  times." 
Montesquieu  acknowledges  still  more  strongly  the  use  to  be  derived  from 
such  works  :— 

"  duoiqu'on  puisse  reprocher  aux  auteurs  de  ces  Vies  d'avoir  6t6  quelque- 
fois  un  peu  trop  cr^^dules  sur  des  choses  que  Dieu  a  certainement  faites,  si 
elles  ont  6te  dans  I'ordre  de  ses  desseins,  on  ne  laisse  pas  d'en  tirer  de  grandes 
lumieres  sur  les  nioeurs  et  les  usages  de  ces  temps-la."— Liv.  xxx.  chap.  2. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  follows  eloquently  in  the  same  track  :— 

"  The  vast  collections  of  the  Lives  of  Saints  often  throws  light  on  public 
events,  and  opens  glimpses  into  the  habits  of  men  in  those  times  ;  nor  are 
they  wanting  in  sources  of  interest,  though  poetical  and  moral  rather  than 

historical The  whole  force  of  this  noble  attempt  to  exalt  human 

nature  was  at  this  period  spent  on  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,— a  sort  of  moral 
heroes  or  demigods,  without  some  acquaintance  with  whom  it  is  hard  to 
comprehend  an  age  when  the  commemoration  of  the  virtues  then  most  vene- 
rated, as  they  were  embodied  in  these  holy  men,  was  the  principal  theme  of 
the  genius  of  Christendom."— Vol.  i.  chap.  2. 

See,  on  the  same  subject,  the  remarks  of  the  Benedictines  (Hist.  Literaire 
de  la  France),  in  speaking  of  the  writers  of  the  seventh  century. 


204  HISTORY   OF   IRELAND. 

should  be  referred  tx)  the  Head  of  Cities,"  and,  a  deputation 
being  accordingly  dispatched  to  Rome  for  the  purpose,  the 
Roman  practice,  on  this  point,  was  ascertained  and  adopted. 

Respecting  the  nature  of  the  religious  doctrines  and  obser- 
vances taught  by  the  earliest  Christian  preachers  in  Ireland, 
we  have,  both  in  the  accounts  of  their  devotional  practices  and 
in  their  writings,  the  most  satisfactory  as  well  as  ample  inform- 
ation. That  they  celebrated  mass  under  the  ancient  tradi- 
tional names  of  the  Holy  Mysteries  of  the  Eucharist,  the  Sac- 
rifice of  Salvation*,  the  Immolation  of  the  Host,  is  admitted 
by  Usher  himself  But  he  might  have  found  language  even 
still  stronger  employed  by  them  to  express  the  mystery  their 
faith  acknowledged  in  that  rite.f  The  ancient  practice  of  Of- 
fering up  prayers  for  the  deadj,  and  the  belief  of  a  middle 
state  of  existence,  after  this  life,  upon  which  that  practice  is 
founded,  formed  also  parts  of  their  creed  ^ ;  though  of  the 
locality  of  the  purgatorial  fire  their  notions  were,  like  those 
of  the  ancient  Fathers,  vague  and  undefined.  In  an  old  Life 
of  St.  Brendan,  who  lived  in  the  sixth  century,  it  is  stated, 


*The  phrase  used  by  St.  Chrysostom,  in  speaking  of  the  progress  of  the 
faith  in  the  British  Isles,  implies  in  itself  that  the  belief  held  in  tliose 
regions  respecting  the  Eucharist  was  the  very  same  which  he  himself  en- 
forced in  his  writings,  and  which  the  Catholic  church  maintains  to  the  pre- 
sent day.  "  They  have  erected  churches  (says  the  saint),  and  Altars  of  Sa- 
crifice.'* 

t  Following  the  belief  of  the  ancient  Christian  church,  as  to  a  Real  Pre- 
sence in  the  sacrament,  they  adopted  the  language  also  by  which  this  mys- 
tery was  expressed  ;  and  the  phrase  of, "  making  the  body  of  Christ"  which 
occurs  so  frequently  in  the  Liturgies  of  the  primitive  Church,  is  found  like- 
wise in  the  writings  of  tJie  first  Irish  Christians.  Thus  Adamnan,  in  hig 
Life  of  St.  Columba,  tells  of  that  Saint  ordering  the  bishop,  Cronan,  "  Christi 
corpus  ex  more  conficere."  Lib.  i.  c.  44.  In  later  Irish  writers,  numerous 
passages  to  the  same  purport  may  be  found;  but,  confining  mj'self  to  those 

only  of  the  earlier  period,  I  shall  add  but  the  following  strong  test' 

from  Sedulius  :— 

Corpus,  sanguis,  aqua,  tria  vita?  numera  nostrse  : 
Fonte  renascentes,  membris  et  sanguine  Christi 
Vescimur,  atque  ideo  templum  Deitatis  habemur; 
Q,uod  servare  Deus  nos  annuat  immaculatum, 
Et  faciat  tenues  tanto  Mansore  capaces. 

Carmen  Paschale,  lib.  iv. 
X  Oblationes  pro  defunctis  annua  die  {acimns.—Tertull. 
§It  is  acknowledged  by  Usher  that  Requiem  masses  were  among  the  reli- 
gious practices  of  the  Irish  Christians  in  those  days ;  but  he  denies  that  they 
were  anything  more  than  "  an  honourable  commemoration  of  the  dead,  and 
a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  for  their  salvation."  It  has  been  shown  clearly, 
however,  that  the.se  masses  were  meant  to  be  also,  in  the  strongest  sense 
of  the  word,  propitiatory.  In  an  old  Irish  missal,  found  at  Bobbio,  of  which 
an  account  has  been  given  in  the  Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  (Ep.  Nunc,  cxxxviii.), 
there  is  contained  a  mass  for  the  dead,  entitled  "  Pro  Defunctis,"  in  which 
the  following  prayer,  and  others  no  less  Catholic,  are  to  be  found  :— "  Con- 
cede propitius,  ut  hJEc  sacra  oblatio  mortuis  prosit  ad  veniam,  et  vivis  pro 
ficiat  ad  salutem." 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  IRISH  CHURCH.  205 

"  the  prayer  of  the  living  doth  much  profit  the  dead ;"  and, 
among  the  canons  of  a  very  early  Irish  Synod,  there  is  one 
entitled  "Of  the  Oblation  for  the  Dead."  Of  the  frequent 
practice,  indeed,  of  prayer  and  almsgiving  for  the  relijef  of  de- 
parted souls,  there  are  to  be  found  throughout  the  records  of 
those  times  abundant  proofs.  In  a  tract  attributed  to  Cummian, 
who  lived  in  the  seventh  century,  and  of  vi^hose  talents  and 
learning  we  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  speak,  propitiatory 
masses  for  the  dead  are  mentioned.  The  habit  of  invoking 
and  praying  to  saints  was,  it  is  evident,  general  among  the 
ancient  Irish  Christians;  and  a  Life  of  St.  Brigid,  written,  ac- 
cording to  Ware,  in  the  seventh  century,  concludes  with  the 
following  words: — "There  are  two  holy  virgins  in  heaven 
who  may  undertake  my  protection,  Mary  and  St.  Brigid,  on 
whose  patronage  let  each  of  us  depend.'"'' 

The  penitential  discipline  established  in  their  monasteries 
was  of  the  most  severe  description.  The  weekly  fast-days 
observed  by  the  whole  Irish  church  were,  according  to  the 
practice  of  the  primitive  times,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays: 
and  the  abstinence  of  the  monks,  and  of  the  more  pious  among 
the  laity,  was  carried  to  an  extreme  unknown  in  later  days. 
The  benefit  of  pilgrimages  also  was  inculcated ;  and  we  find 
mention  occasionally,  in  the  Annals,  of  princes  dying  in  pil- 
grimage.f  The  practice  of  auricular  confession,  and  their 
belief  in  the  power  of  the  priest  to  absolve  from  sin,  is  proved 
by  the  old  penitential  canons,  and  by  innumerable  passages  in 
the  Lives  of  their  Saints.l 

The  only  point,  indeed,  eitJier  of  doctrine  or  discipline, — 
and  under  this  latter  head  alone  the  exception  falls, — in  which 
the  least  difference,  of  any  moment,  can  be  detected  between 
the  religion  professed  by  the  first  Irish  Christians  and  that  of 
the  Catholics  of  the  present  day,  is  with  respect  to  the  mar- 

*  See  Lanigan,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  vol.  iii.  chap.  20.  note  107. 

t  See  Tigernach,  a.  d.  CIO,  and  also  723.  In  tlie  Annals  of  the  Four  Mas- 
ters, A.  D.  777,  the  pili^rimage  of  a  son  of  the  king  of  Connaught  to  the  Isle 
of  Hyona  is  recorded. 

I  On  this  point  Usher  acknowledges  that  "  they  did  (no  doubt)  both  pub- 
licly and  privately  make  confession  of  their  faults,"  (chap.  5.)  and  adds,  in 
proof  of  this  fact,  what  follows :— "  One  old  penitential  canon  we  find  laid 
down  in  a  synod  held  in  this  country,  about  the  year  of  our  Lord  450,  by  St. 
Patrick,  Auxilius,  and  Isserninus,  which  is  as  followeth  :— '  A  Christian  who 
hath  killed  a  man,  or  committed  fornication,  or  gone  unto  a  soothsayer,  after 
the  manner  of  the  Gentiles,  for  every  of  those  crimes  shall  do  a  year  of  pen- 
ance ;  when  his  year  of  penance  is  accomplished,  he  shall  come  with  wit- 
nesses, and  afterward  he  shall  be  absolved  by  the  priest.'  "  Usher  contends, 
however,  for  their  having  in  so  far  differed  from  the  belief  of  the  present 
Catholics,  that  they  did  not  attribute  to  the  priest  any  more  than  a  minis- 
terial power  in  the  remission  of  sins. 

Vol.  I.  18 


206 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


ria^e  of  the  clergy,  which,  as  appears  from  the  same  sources 
of  evidence  that  have  furnished  all  the  foregoing  proofs,  was, 
though  certainly  not  approved  of,  yet  permitted  and  practised. 
Besides  a  number  of  incidental  proofs  of  this  fact,  the  sixth 
Canon  of  the  Synod  attributed  to  St.  Patrick  enjoins  that  "  the 
clerk's  wife  shall  not  walk  out  without  having  her  head 
veiled."* 

The  evidence  which  Usher  has  adduced  to  prove,  that  com- 
munion in  both  kinds  was  permitted  to  the  laity  among  the 
Irish,  is  by  no  means  conclusive  or  satisfactory! ; — though  it 
would  certainly  appear,  from  one  of  the  Canons  of  the  Peni- 
tential of  St.  Columbanus|,  that,  before  the  introduction  of  his 
rule,  novices  had  been  admitted  to  the  cup.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  any  difference  of  practice,  in  this  respect, 
has  been  always  considered  as  a  mere  point  of  discipline,  and 
accordingly  subject  to  such  alteration  as  the  change  of  time 
and  circumstances  may  require. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


EMINENT   RELIGIOUS   PERSONS,   COLUMBA,   COLUMBANUS,   BRIGID. 


Among  the  signs  of  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  that  period, 
not  the  least  striking  is  the  number  of  persons,  of  both  sexes, 
who,  in  the  midst  of  so  many  competitors  for  the  palm  of  holi- 
ness, became  sufficiently  eminent  to  attain  the  title  of  Saints. 
These  holy  persons  are,  by  our  ecclesiastical  writers,  distin- 
guished into  two  classes,  the  first  of  which,  consisting  partly 
of  foreigners  and  partly  of  natives,  extended  down  from  the 
coming  of  St.  Patrick  to  the  latter  years  of  Tuathal's  reign, 
about  A.  D.  542.     To  this  class,  which  was  accounted  the  ho- 

*  If  the  torm  clerk  here  he  understood  to  comprise  all  the  meiiihers  of  the 
clerical  orders,  the  permission  to  marry  extended  also,  of  course,  to  priests ; 
but  it  is  thought  by  some  that  the  words  of  the  canon  apply  only  to  the  in- 
ferior ranks  of  the  clergy.  "  With  respect  to  our  English  church  (says  Dr. 
Milner),  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  we  gather  from  St.  Gregory's  per- 
mission for  the  clerks  in  minor  orders  to  take  wives,  that  this  was  unlawful 
for  the  clergy  in  holy  order.«,  namely,  for  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  agree- 
ably to  a  well-known  rule  of  reasoning,  '  Exceptio  confirmat  regulam  ;'  and 
we  are  justified  in  inferring  the  same  with  respect  to  the  Irish  clergy  in  St. 
Patrick's  time." — Inquiry  into  certain  iiulgar  opinions,  i^-c.  (^c.     Letter  14. 

t  He  founds  his  conclusion  chiefly  on  their  use  of  such  phrases  as  "  the 
communion  of  the  Lord's  body  and  blood  ;"  whereas  the  Catholics  of  the  pre- 
sent day,  among  whom  the  laity  receive  the  sacrament  under  one  kind  only, 
use  the  very  same  language. 

X  Columban.  in  Pocnitcnt.,  as  I  find  it  thus  cited  by  Ceillier  :— "  Novi  quia 
indocti  et  quicunque  tales  fuerint,  ad  calicem  non  accedant." 


ST.  COLUMBA.  207 

Jiest,  as  including  in  it  tlie  friends  and  disciples  of  St.  Patrick, 
succeeded  another  series,  reaching  to  the  very  close  of  the 
sixth  century ;  and  to  this  second  class  of  Saints,  Columba,  or, 
as  he  is  more  commonly  called,  Columbkill,  belonged.  In  a 
country  where  the  pride  of  blood  has  been  at  all  times  so  pre- 
dominant, it  formed  no  inconsiderable  part  of  this  Saint's  per- 
sonal advantages,  that  he  was  of  royal  extraction ;  being,  by 
the  paternal  side,  descended  from  that  "  father  of  many  kings," 
Nial,  while  his  mother,  Athena,  was  of  an  illustrious  and 
princely  house  of  Leinster.  We  are  told  of  a  dream  which 
his  mother  had,  before  she  was  delivered  of  him,  which  pre- 
figures so  fancifully  the  future  spread  of  his  spiritual  influence 
and  fame,  that,  though  but  a  dream,  it  may,  perhaps,  briefly  be 
mentioned.  An  Angel,  it  is  said,  appeared  to  her,  bringing  a 
veil  in  his  hand,  of  wonderful  beauty,  seemingly  painted  over 
with  a  variety  of  flowers,  which,  having  presented  it  to  her, 
lie  almost  instantly  again  took  away,  and  spreading  it  out,  al- 
lowed it  to  fly  through  the  air.  On  her  asking  sadly  why  he 
had  deprived  her  of  this  treasure,  the  Angel  answered  that  it 
was  far  too  precious  to  be  left  with  her ;  and  she  then  observed 
it,  far  and  wide,  expanding  itself  over  the  distant  mountains, 
forests,  and  plains.* 

This  Saint  was  born  about  the  year  521,  in  the  barony  of 
Kilmacrcnan  ;  and  liis  name,  originally  Crimthan,  was,  by  rea- 
son, it  is  said,  of  the  dove-like  simplicity  of  his  character, 
changed  afterwards  into  Columba.  To  this  was  added,  in  the 
course  of  time,  the  surname  of  Cille  or  Kille,  making  the  title 
by  which  he  was  from  thenceforth  distinguished  Columbkill, 
or  Columba  of  the  Churches.  Of  the  different  schools  where 
he  pursued  his  studies,  the  most  celebrated  was  that  of  Finnian 
at  Clonard.  There  had  already,  in  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  or 
immediately  after,  sprung  up  a  number  of  ecclesiastical  semi- 
naries throughout  Ireland;  and,  besides  those  of  Ailbe,  of  Ibar, 
of  the  poet  Fiech,  at  Sletty,  there  appears  to  have  been  also  a 

*  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba,  lib.  iii.  cap.  i.  Of  tbis  remarkable  piece 
of  l)iography,  written  by  an  Irishman  in  the  seventh  century,  the  reader  may 
not  dislike  to  see  some  specimens.  The  following  is  the  passage  describing 
this  dream  :— "  Angelus  Domini  in  somnis  genetrici  venerabilis  viri,  quadam 
nocte  inter  conceptum  et  partum  apparuit,  eique  quasi  quoddam  mirte  pul- 
chritudinis  pepluin  assistens  detulit :  in  quo  veluti  universorum  decorose 
florum  depicti  videbantur ;  quodque  post  aliquod  breve  intervallum,  ejus  de 
manibus  reposcens,  abstulit ;  elevansque  et  expandens,  in  aere  dimisit  vacuo. 
Ilia  vero  de  illo  tristificata  sublato,  sic  ad  ilium  venerandi  habitus  virum : 
Cur  a  me,  ait,  hoc  laetificum  tum  cito  abstrahis  pallium  ?  Ille  consequenter ; 
Idcirco,  inquit,  quia  hoc  sagum  alicujus  est  tam  magnifici  honoris,  quod  apud 
te  diutius  retinere  non  poteris.  His  dictis,  supra  memoratum  peplum  raulier 
paulatim  a  se  elongari  volando  videbat,  camporumque  latitudinem  in  majus 
crescendo  excedere,  montcsque  et  saltus  majore  sui  mensura  superare." 


208  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

school  at  Armagh,  established  by  the  apostle  himself,  and  in- 
trusted, during  his  lifetime,  to  the  care  of  his  disciple  Benig- 
nus.  At  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  such  institutions 
had  multiplied  in  every  direction ;  but  by  far  the  most  distin- 
guished of  them  all,  as  well  for  the  number  as  the  superior 
character  of  its  scholars,  was  the  long-renowned  seminary  of 
St,  Finnian,  at  Clonard.*  Having  completed  his  course  of  stu- 
dies under  this  master,  Columba  early  commenced  those  labours 
by  which  his  fame  was  acquired ;  being  but  in  his  twenty-fifth 
year  when  he  founded  that  monastery  called  Doire  Calgach, 
near  Lough  Foyle,  from  whence  the  name  of  the  town,  or  city, 
of  Derry  was  derived.  Not  long  after,  proceeding  to  the 
southern  parts  of  the  ancient  Meath,  he  erected  another  mo- 
nastery, equally  famous,  on  a  site  then  called  Dairmagh,  or 
the  Plain  of  the  Oaks ;  and  which  had  been  given,  as  an  offer- 
ing "to  God  and  St.  Columba,"  by  a  pious  chieftain  named 
Brendan,  t 

But  the  Saint  perceived  that  it  was  not  in  Ireland  he  could 
hope  to  reap  the  full  harvest  of  his  toils.  Thwarted  as  he  was, 
in  his  spiritual  labours,  by  the  eternal  feuds  of  the  Irish  princes, 
among  whom  his  own  relatives,  the  Nials  of  the  North  and 
South,  were,  at  all  times,  the  most  unmanageable,  he  resolved 
to  seek  elsewhere  some  more  promising  field  of  exertion ;  and 
the  condition  of  the  northern  Picts  in  Britain,  who  were  still 
sunk  in  all  the  darkness  of  Paganism,  seemed  to  present  the 
scene  of  action  his  holy  ambition  desired. |  He  had  in  view 
also,  it  is  plain,  the  better  instruction  and  guidance  of  that 
great  body  of  his  countrymen  who  had  now  settled  in  Nortli 
Britain ;  nor  was  his  relationship  to  the  princely  house  which 
had  founded  that  new  kingdom  without  some  share,  it  may  be 
presumed,  in  stimulating  his  anxiety  for  its  welfare.  There  is, 
in  some  of  the  various  accounts  of  his  life,  a  story  attributing 
his  departure  from  Ireland  to  some  fierce  and  revengeful  con- 
duct, on  iiis  part,  towards  the  monarch  Diarmid ;  of  which  he 
afterwards,  it  is  added,  so  bitterly  repented,  as  to  impose  upon 
himself  perpetual  exile  in  penance  of  the  wrong.  It  has  been 
shown  satisfactorily,  however,  that  there  are  no  grounds  for 
this  story ;  and  that  though,  for  some  venial  and  unimportant 

*  In  this  school  of  Finnian  at  Clonard,  there  are  said  to  have  been,  at  one 
time,  three  thousand  scholars.  "  Finianus  Abbas  de  Cluain-eraird,  magister 
Hanctorum  Hiberniae,  habuit  enim  in  sua  schola  de  Cluain-eraird  tria  millia 
sanctorum." — Martyr.  Dxivgal,  ad  12  Decemb. 

\  See  Camden,  1011.,  where  he  is  guilty  of  the  double  error  of  confounding 
Dearmagh  with  Armagh,  and  St.  Columbanus  with  St.  Columba. 

X  Venit  de  Hybernia  Britanniam  prtEdicaturus  verbium  Dei  provinciis  Sep- 
tentrionalium  ?icior\im.—Bede.  lib.  iii.  c.  4.  • 


ST.  COLUMBA    IN    SCOTLAND.  209 

proceedings,  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  excommunicate  him 
before  his  departure  from  Ireland,  the  account  of  his  quarrel 
with  the  monarch  is  but  an  ill-constructed  fable,  which,  from 
the  internal  evidence  of  its  inconsistencies,  falls  to  pieces  of 
itself* 

Having  obtained  from  his  relative,  Conal,  who  was 
then  kmg  of  the  Albanian  Scots,  a  grant  of  the  small  ^gg ' 
island  of  Hy,.  or  lona,  which  was  an  appendage  to  the 
new  Scotish  kingdom,  Columba,  in  the  year  563,  together  with 
twelve  of  his  disciples,  set  sail  for  that  sequestered  spot.  In 
the  same  year,  a  sanguinary  battle  was  fought  in  Ireland,  be- 
tween the  Nials  of  the  North  and  the  Irish  Picts,  in  which  the 
latter  were,  with  immense  slaughter,  defeated ;  and  it  is  evi- 
dent, from  a  passage  in  Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba,  which 
represents  the  Saint  as  conversing  with  Conal  at  the  time  of 
that  battle,  that  he  must  have  visited  the  court  of  the  Scotish 
king  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Hy.  One  of  his  first  tasks,  on 
entering  upon  the  management  of  his  island,  was  to  expel  from 
thence  some  Druids  who  had  there  established  their  abode; 
this  secluded  island  having  been  early  one  of  the  haunts  of  this 
priesthood,  as  the  remains  of  circular  temples,  and  other  such 
monuments,  still  existing  among  its  ruins,  seem  to  prove. 
Having  erected  there  a  monastery  and  a  church,  and  arranged 
such  matters  as  were  connected  with  his  establishment,  he  now 
directed  his  attention  to  the  main  object  of  his  great  Christian 
enterprise — that  of  exploring  tlie  wild  regions  beyond  the 
Grampian  hills,  where  no  missionary  before  himself  had  ever 
yet  ventured,  and  endeavouring  to  subdue  to  the  mild  yoke  of 
the  Gospel  the  liardy  race  wlio  were  there  entrenched.  The 
territory  of  the  northern  Picts,  at  this  period,  included  all  that 
part  of  modern  Scotland  which  lies  to  the  north  of  the  great 
range  of  the  Grampian  mountainsf ;  and  the  residence  of  their 
king  Brude,  at  the  time  of  Columba's  mission,  was  somewhere 
on  the  borders  of  Loch  Ness.];  Hither  the  courageous  Saint 
first  directed  his  steps  ;  and  the  fame  of  his  coming  having,  no 
doubt,  preceded  him,  on  arriving  witli  his  companions  nX  the 
royal  castle,  he  found  the  gates  closed  against  him.  His  ex- 
clusion, however,  was  but  of  short  duration.     By  one  of  those 

*  This  lonjT  story  may  be  found,  in  its  most  abridged  shape,  in  Usher,  Do 
Britann.  Eccles.  Primord.  902. 

t  Hoc  est,  eis  qui  arduis  atque  horrentibus  montium  jugis  ab  Australibus 
eorum  sunt  regionibus  sequestrati.— ^edc,  lib.  3.  cap.  4. 

X  Ubi  vero  munitio  ejus,  vel  urbs  regia  fuerit,  nuUibi  satis  certo  reperio.— 
Adamnan.  He  mentions,  however,  that  it  was  near  Loch  Ness,—"  Nesa) 
fluminis  lacuni." 

18* 


210  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

miracles  to  which,  in  the  records  of  that  all-believing  age, 
every  event  in  favour  of  the  church  is  attributed,  Columba, 
advancing,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  the  gates,  and,  in- 
stantly, at  the  touch  of  his  hand,  they  flew  open.*  Apprized 
of  this  prodigy,  the  king  came  forward,  with  his  whole  coun- 
cil, to  give  him  welcome ;  and  from  thenceforth  treated  his 
holy  visiter  with  every  mark  of  reverence.  Notwithstanding 
the  efforts  made  by  the  Magi — more  especially  by  the  king's 
tutor,  Broichan — to  prevent  the  preaching  of  the  missionaries, 
and  uphold  the  Pagan  creed,  their  opposition  proved  entirely 
fruitless;  and  the  conversion  of  the  king  himself,  which  had 
been  early  effectedf,  was  gradually  followed,  in  the  course  of 
this  and  other  visits  of  the  Saint,  by  the  propagation  of  the 
Christian  faith  throughout  the  whole  of  North  Pictland.^: 

His  apostolical  labours  were  next  extended  to  the  Western 
Isles,  throughout  the  wliole  of  which  the  enlightening  eftects 
of  his  presence  and  influence  were  felt.  Wherever  he  directed 
his  steps,  churches  were  erected,  religious  teachers  supplied, 
and  holy  communities  formed.  Among  the  islands  which  he 
most  favoured  with  his  visits  are  mentioned  Hymba  and  Ethica^; 
in  the  latter  of  which  a  monastery  had  been  founded  by  a  priest 
named  Findchan,  who  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  Saint 
by  an  act  strongly  characteristic  of  those  times.  Aldus  the 
Black,  a  prince  of  the  royal  blood  of  the  Irish  Cruthens  or 
Picts,  having  murdered,  besides  other  victims,  Diermit,  the 

*  Alio  in  tempore,  hoc  est  in  prima  Sancti  fatigatione  itineris  ad  Regem 
Brudium,  casu  contigit,  ut  idem  Rex  fai^tu  relatus  regie,  sufc  munitionis,  su- 
perbe  agens,  in  primo  beati  adventii  viri,  nori  aperiret  portas.  Q,uod  ut  cog- 
novit homo  Dei,  cum  comitibus,  ad  valvas  portarum  accedeus,  primum  Domi- 
nicje  Crucis  imprimens  signum,  turn  doinde  manum  pulsans  contra  ostia 
ponit :  quae  continuo  sponte,  retro  rctrusis  fortiter  seris,  cum  omni  celeritate 
aperta  sunt ;  quibus  statini  apertis,  Sanctus  consequenter  cum  sociis  intrat. 
— ^damnan,  lib.  ii.  cap.  3. 

t  Thus  it  is  said,  in  some  verses  quoted  by  Usher  from  an  Irish  Breviary,— 
"  Reliiiquens  patriam  caram  Hiberniam, 
Per  Christi  gratiam  venit  ad  Scotiam  ; 
Per  quem  idonea  vitse  priniordia 

Rex  gentis  sumpsit  Pictinia?." 

J  In  an  article  of  the  Ed.  Review,  No.  15.  art.  7.,  it  is  erroneously  said, 
"  St.  Columba,  who  was  an  Irish  Celt,  and  the  Apostle  of  the  Highlands,  ia 
not  stated  to  have  used  an  interpreter,  when  he  addressed  the  Pictish  kings, 
or  when  he  preached  the  gospel  to  vast  multitudes  of  their  people."  It  ap- 
pears on  the  contrary  from'  Adamnanus,  that  the  saint  did  use  an  interpreter 
on  some  of  these  occasions,—"  per  interpretatorem,  sancto  predicante  viro:" 
and  the  conclusion  that  the  Picts  were  not  a  Celtic  people  seems  not  a  little 
confirmed  by  this  circumstance. 

§  It  is  not  known  by  what  names  these  two  islands  are  called  at  present. 
Pinkerton  supposes  that  Ethica  may  have  been  the  island  now  named  Lewis; 
but  Dr.  Lanigan  thinks  it  was  no  other  than  Eig,  or  Egg,  an  island  about 
thirty-six  miles  to  the  north  of  Hy. 


ST.  COLUMBA    IN    THE    WESTERN    ISLES.  211 

monarch  of  Ireland,  took  refuge  in  the  monastery  of  Ethica, 
and  was  there,  notwithstanding  these  crimes,  raised  to  the 
priesthood.* 

He  superintended  also  the  spiritual  affairs  of  the  Scotish 
kingdom ;  founding  there,  as  elsewhere,  religious  establish- 
ments. JVom  the  mention,  too,  by  his  biographer  Adamnan, 
of  some  Saxon  converts  at  Hy,  it  seems  not  improbable  that 
his  fame  had  attracted  thither  some  of  those  Anglo-Saxons 
who  had  now  got  footing  in  North  Britain ;  and  that  even  thus 
early  had  commenced  the  course  of  Christian  kindliness  to- 
wards that  people,  for  which  the  Irish  are  so  warmly  commend- 
ed by  Bede ; — forming  a  contrast,  as  it  did,  to  the  uncharitable 
conduct  which  the  same  writer  complains  of  in  the  Britons, 
who  were,  he  says,  guilty  of  the  sin  of  neglecting  to  announce 
the  Gospel  to  the  Anglo-Saxons,  f  As,  at  this  time,  Augustine 
and  his  brother  missionaries  had  not  yet  arrived  in  Britain, 
there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  by  St.  Columba  and  his  com- 
panions the  work  of  converting  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  begun ; 
and  the  Christians  of  that  nation,  mentioned  by  Adamnan  as 
among  the  converts  at  Hy,  were,  it  is  most  probable,  some  of 
the  first-fruits  of  the  Saint's  apostolical  labours.  While  en- 
gaged in  his  beneficent  ministry  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
isles,  Columba,  more  than  once,  found  himself  called  upon  to 
defend  this  peaceful  people  against  the  inroads  of  a  band  of 
plunderers  from  the  Albanian  shores,  who,  though  themselves 
professing  to  be  Christians,  and,  some  of  them,  relatives  of  the 
Saint,  took  every  opportunity  of  making  incursions  upon  the 
Christians  of  the  Isles.  |  With  the  same  spirit  which  St.  Pat- 
rick evinced  in  denouncing  the  pirate  prince  Coroticus,  Co- 
lumba pronounced  the  solemn  sentence  of  excommunication 
against  the  chief  of  these  marauders. 

On  the  death  of  Conal,  king  of  the  British  Scots,  in 
the  year  572-3,  Aidan,  the  son  of  Gauran,  succeeded  to  cr^'oQ 
the  throne ;  and  it  is  mentioned  as  a  proof  of  the  gene- 

*  Alio  in  tempore  supra  memoratus  Presbyter  Finchanus,  CUristi  miles, 
Aidum  cognomento  Nigrum,  regio  genere  ortum,  Cruthinium  gente,  de  Scotia 
ad  Britanniam  subClericatus  habitu  secum  adduxit,  ut  in  suo  apudse  monaf?- 
terio  per  aliquod  poregrinaretur  annos  :  qui  scilicet  Aldus  niger  valde  san- 
guinarius  homo  et  multorum  fuerat  trucidator  ;  qiii  et  Dermitium  filiumCer- 
buill,  totius  Scotia3  regnatorem  Deo  auctorc  ordinatum  interfecerat. — 9davi- 
nav,  cap.  4. 

t  "  To  the  end  that  by  reason  the  same  nation  (the  Scots,  or  Irish)  had 
taiten  care  willingly  and  without  envy  to  communicate  to  the  English  people 
the  knowledge  they  have  of  the  true  Deity  .  .  .  even  as,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Britons  would  not  acquaint  the  English  with  the  knowledge  they  had  of 
the  Christian  faith."— £ccicsirts«.  Hist.  lib.  v.  cap.  23. 

X  Adamnan,  lib.  ii.  cap.  22.  "Ecclesiarum  persecutores,"  the  biographer 
calls  them. 


21,2  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

ral  veneration  in  wliich  Columba  was  then  held,  as  well  by 
sovereigns  as  by  the  clergy  and  the  people,  that  he  was  the 
person  selected  to  perform  the  ceremony  of  inauguration  on 
the  accession  of  the  new  king.*  Though  occupied  so  zealously 
with  the  spiritual  interests  of  North  Britain,  he  did  not  neglect 
to  inform  himself  constantly  of  the  state  of  the  religious  houses 
founded  by  him  in  Ireland,  and  even  occasionally,  we  are  told, 
repaired  thither  in  person,  when  affairs  of  moment  required 
his  presence.  An  exigence  of  this  nature,  highly  important 
in  a  political  point  of  view,  occurred  soon  after  the  accession 
of  Aidan  to  the  throne  of  the  British  Scots,  A  claim  put  forth 
by  this  sovereign,  as  descendant  of  the  ancient  princes  of  Dal- 
riada,  having  been  contested  by  the  Irish  monarch  Aldus,  it 
was  agreed  that  the  difference  between  them  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  states-general  of  Ireland,  convoked  at  Drumceat ; 
and  the  attendance  of  king  Aidan  at  tliis  assembly  being  indis- 
pensable, he  was  accompanied  thither  by  his  friend  St.  Columba. 
Setting  out  in  a  small  vessel,  attended  by  a  few  monks,  the 
Saint  and  the  king  directed  their  course  to  the  north ;  and,  after 
encountering  a  violent  storm  in  the  open  sea,  landed  at  the 
mouth  of  t!ie  river  which  runs  into  Lough  Foyle,  and  from 
thence  proceeded  to  Drumceat.  They  found  this  national  as- 
sembly, which  consisted  not  only  of  the  kings  and  nobles,  but 
likewise  of  the  heads  of  clerical  bodies,  engaged  in  a  discus- 
sion, tlie  subject  of  which  shows  tlie  singular  tenacity  with 
which  old  customs  and  institutions  still  held  their  ground  among 
this  people,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  new  light  by  which  they 
were  now  sun'oundcd.  We  have  seen  how  powerful,  in  the 
times  of  Paganism,  was  the  influence  of  the  Bardic  or  Literary 
Order ;  insomuch  that  strong  measures  had  been  found  neces- 
sary, by  some  of  the  early  kings,  to  repress,  or  at  least  regu- 
late, the  pretensions  of  that  body.  At  the  time  of  which  we 
are  speaking,  the  two  classes  composing  this  Order,  namely, 
the  Fileas,  or  poets,  and  the  Seanachies,  or  antiquaries,  had 

*  Columba  liad  been,  at  first,  unwillinp  to  perform  this  ceremony  ;  but  an 
angel,  as  his  l)iographers  say,  appeared  to  liim  during  the  night,  Iiolding  a 
book  called  "  The  Glass  IJook  of  the  Ordination  of  Kings,"  which  Jie  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  Saint,  and  ordered  him  to  ordain  Aidan  king,  according  to 
the  directions  of  that  book.  This  Liber  Vitreus  is  supposed  to  have  been  so 
called  from  having  its  cover  encrusted  with  glass  or  crystal.  It  is  rather 
remarkable,  that  a  learned  writer  on  church  anti<iuities,  Martcne,  refers  to 
this  inauguration  of  Aidan  by  St.  Columba,  as  the  most  ancient  instance  he 
had  met  with,  in  the  course  of  his  reading,  of  the  benediction  of  kings  in 
Christian  times.  "  Q,uorum  (regum)  benedictio  hand  minoris  antiquitatis  est 
quam  imperatorum.  Antiquissima  omnium  quas  inter  legendum  mihi  repe- 
rire  licuit,  ea  est  qus  a  Columba  Abbate  Hiensi  facta  est,  jussu  Angeli,  in 
Aidanum  Scotorum  regem."— Dc  ^ntiq.  Ecclcs.  JRif.  lib.  ii.  cap.  10. 


DISPUTES    REFERRED    TO    ST.    COLUMBA.  213 

become  so  burthensome  from  their  numbers,  and  so  unpopular 
from  their  insolence,  that  some  vigorous  steps  were  meditated 
against  them  by  this  assembly ;  and  their  suppression,  and 
even  banishment  from  the  country,  were  on  the  point  of  being 
decided,  when  St.  Columba  arrived.  Whether  actuated  by  his 
general  feeling  of  benevolence,  or  having  some  leaning  in 
favour  of  the  professors  of  an  art  which  he  himself  practised*, 
the  Saint  interfered  in  behalf  of  the  threatened  Bards ;  and 
prevailed  so  far  as  that,  under  certain  limitations  and  restric- 
tions, their  order  should  still  be  permitted  to  exist.f 

The  important  question,  respecting  the  po«ts,  being  thus  dis- 
posed of,  the  Assembly  had  next  to  pronounce  their  judgment 
upon  the  question  at  issue  between  the  two  kings.  On  the 
ground  of  his  descent  from  Carbre  Rieda,  to  whom,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  grant  had  been  made,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  centu- 
ry, of  all  those  parts  of  the  county  of  Antrim  which  formed 
the  territory  called,  from  thenceforth,  Dalriada,  king  Aidan  as- 
serted his  hereditary  right  to  the  sovereignty  of  that  territory, 
and  maintained  that,  as  belonging  to  his  family,  it  should  be  ex- 
empt, if  not  in  the  whole,  at  least  in  part,  from  the  payment  of 
tribute  to  the  king  of  Ireland,  and  from  all  such  burthens  as 
affected  the  rest  of  the  kingdom.     The  Irish  monarch,  on  the 

*  According  to  Mr.  O'Reilly,  Columba  "  wrote  several  pieces,  both  in  Irish 
and  Latin.  Upwards  of  thirty  poems,  in  the  Irish  language,  ascribed  to  him, 
have  come  down  to  our  times,  of  which  copies  are  in  posses.^ion  of  the  assist- 
ant secretary."  There  is,  however,  little  or  no  reliance  to  be  placed  on  the 
authenticity  of  the  pieces  attributed  to  this  Saint ;  which  had  probably  their 
origin  in  that  favourite  practice  of  the  Irish  writers  of  the  middle  ages,  of 
introducing  their  own  productions  to  public  notice  under  the  sanction  of 
long  celebrated  names. 

t  The  whole  of  this  account  of  the  proceedings  at  Drumceat,  respecting 
the  Bards,  is  represented  by  Mr.  Whitty  (Popular  Hist,  of  Ireland)  as  an  in- 
vention of  the  poets  of  subsequent  times,  who,  he  says,  "  knew  well  the 
value  of  dignified  associations,  and  accordingly  did  not  fail  to  connect  their 
order  with  the  names  of  St.  Patrick  and  St.  Columb-cille."  But  the  perfect 
consistency  of  the  acts  of  the  council  at  Drumceat,  as  well  as  of  some  others 
at  a  still  earlier  period,  with  all  that  is  known  of  the  political  importance 
of  the  Irish  bards  in  later  times,  is  such  as  to  confirm  the  historical  truth  of 
the  curious  circumstance  above  related.  In  a  parliament  held  by  the  duke 
of  Clarence,  at  Kilkenny,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  it  was  made  penal  to 
entertain  any  of  the  Irish  minstrels,  rimers,  or  news-tellers.  (Davies's  Dis- 
covery.) Under  Henry  VIII.,  some  of  the  coercive  measures  proposed  by  ba- 
ron Finglas  were  directed  against  '•  Irish  minstrals,  rymers,  shannaghs  (gene- 
alogists), and  bards  ;"  and,  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  acts  were  passed  against 
this  order  of  men,  which  show  how  dangerous,  as  political  engines,  they 
were  even  at  that  period  considered.  "  For  that  those  rymers  do  by  their 
ditties  and  rhymes  made  to  divers  lords  and  gentlemen  in  Ireland,  in  the 
commendation  and  high  praise  of  extorsion-,  rebellion,  rape,  raven,  and  other 
injustice,  encourage  those  lords  and  gentlemen  rather  to  follow  those  vices 
than  to  leave,"  &c.  &c.  So  late,  indeed,  as  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  we  find 
"  wandering  poets,"  who  sought  to  gain  their  ends,  "  under  threat  of  some 
ecandalous  rhyme,"  made  liable  to  imprisonment. 


214  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Other  hand,  contended  that  the  territory  in  question  formed  a 
portion  of  his  dominions,  and  had  always,  equally  with  the  rest, 
been  subject  to  imposts  and  contributions;  that,  before  tlie 
Dalriadians  became  sovereigns  in  Britain,  such  tribute  had 
been  always  paid  by  that  principality,  nor  could  tlie  elevation 
of  its  princes  to  a  throne  in  North  Britain  make  any  difference 
in  its  relations  to  the  Irish  monarchy.  Notwithstanding  his 
known  attachment  to  king  Aidan,  so  great  was  the  general 
trust  in  Columba's  sense  of  justice,  that  to  him  alone  the  deci- 
sion of  the  question  was  first  referred.  On  his  declining,  how- 
ever, to  pronounce  any  opinion  respecting  it,  the  task  of  arbi- 
tration was  committed  to  St.  Colman, — a  man  deeply  versed, 
as  we  are  told,  in  the  legal  and  ecclesiastical  learning, — who, 
on  the  obvious  grounds,  that  Dalriada,  being  an  Irish  province, 
could  not  but  be  subject,  in  every  respect,  to  the  monarch  of  all 
Ireland,  gave  his  decision  against  the  claim  of  king  Aidan. 

During  this,  his  last,  sojourn  in  Ireland,  Columba  visited  all 
the  various  religious  establishments  which  he  had  founded; 
passing  some  time  at  his  favourite  monastery  at  Dairmagh,  and 
there  devoting  himself  to  tlic  arrangement  of  matters  connect- 
ed with  the  discipline  of  the  church.  After  accomplishing,  to 
the  best  of  his  power,  all  tiie  objects  he  had  in  view  in  visiting 
Ireland,  he  returned  to  his  home  in  North  Britain, — to  that 
"  Isle  of  his  heart,"  as,  in  some  prophetic  verses  attributed  to 
him,  lona  is  called*, — and  there,  assiduous  to  the  last  in  attend- 
ing to  the  care  of  his  monasteries  and  numerous  churches,  re- 
mained till  death  closed  his  active  and  beneficent  course.  The 
description  given  of  his  last  moments  by  one  who  received  the 
details  from  an  eye-witness,  presents  a  picture  at  once  so  calm 
and  so  vivid,  that  I  shall  venture,  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the 
words  of  his  biographer,  to  relate  some  particulars  of  the 
sccne.f     Having  been  forewarneil,  it  is  said,  in  his  dreams  of 

*  *'  In  the  Isle  of  my  heart,  the  Ish3  of  my  love,  instead  of  a  monk's  voice 
there  sliall  Imj  h)\ving  of  cattle.  But,  ere  the  world  comes  to  an  end,  lona 
shall  flourish  as  before." — Cited  in  ^rmstronff's  Gaelic  Dictionary.  Dr.  John- 
son appears  to  have  been  animated  with  a  similar  spirit  of  projJhecy  respect- 
ing this  island.  "  Perhaps,*"  says  the  moralist,  "  in  the  revolutions  of  the 
world,  lona  may  be,  some  time  apain,  the  instructress  of  the  western  re- 
gions."   {Journey  to  the  fVestcrn  Islands.) 

t  Post  hfEc  verba  de  illodicens  (descendens)  monticellulo.et  ad  monasterium 
revertcns,  sedebat  in  tugurio  Psalterium  scribens;  et  ad  ilium  tertii  Psahni 
versiculum  perveniens,  ubi  scribitur,  Inquirentes  autem  Dominum  non  defi- 
cient omni  bono.  Hie,  ait,  in  fine  cessandum  est  paginae;  quae  vero  sequun- 
tur  Baitheneus  scribat.  .  .  .  Interim  ctetus  inonachorum  cum  luminaribus 
accurrens,  Patre  viso  moriente,  csepit  plangere  ;  et  ut  ah  aliquibus  qui  pra3- 
scntcs  inerant  didicimus,  Sanctus  necdum  egrediente  anima,  apertis  sursum 
oculis,  ad  utrumqnc  latus  cum  mira  hilaritate  et  la;titia  circumspiciebat.  .  .  . 
Diernntius  tum  Sancti  sanctum  sublevat,  ad  benedicienduni  monacborum 
Chorum,  dexteram  manum:  sedet  ipse  venerabilis  Pater  in  quantum  poterat^ 
suam  simul  movebat  manum. — Mamnan,  lib.  iii.  cap.  3. 


REMAINS    OF    ST.  COLUMBKILL.  215 

the  time  when  his  death  was  to  take  place,  he  rose,  on  the 
morning  of  the  day  before,  and  ascending  a  small  eminence, 
lifted  up  his  hands  and  solemnly  blessed  the  monastery.  Re- 
turning from  thence,  he  sat  down  in  a  hut  adjoining,  and  there 
occupied  himself  in  copying  part  of  the  Psalter,  till,  having 
finished  a  page  with  a  passage  of  the  thirty-third  Psalm,  he 
stopped  and  said,  "  Let  Baithen  write  the  remainder."  This 
Baithen,  who  was  one  of  the  twelve  disciples  that  originally 
accompanied  him  to  Ily,  had  been  named  by  him  as  his  suc- 
cessor. After  attending  the  evening  service  in  the  church,  the 
Saint  returned  to  his  cell,  and,  reclining  on  his  bed  of  stone, 
delivered  some  instructions  to  his  favourite  attendant,  to  be 
communicated  to  the  brethren.  When  the  bell  rang  for  mid- 
night prayer,  he  hastened  to  the  church,  and  was  the  first  to 
enter  it.  Throwing  himself  upon  his  knees,  he  began  to  pray 
— but  his  strength  failed  him  ;  and  his  brethren,  arriving  soon 
after,  found  tlieir  beloved  master  reclining  before  the  altar, 
and  on  the  point  of  death.  Assembling  all  around  him,  these 
holy  men  stood  silent  and  weeping,  while  the  Saint,  opening 
his  eyes,  with  an  expression  full  of  cheerfulness,  made  a  slight 
movement  of  his  hand,  as  if  to  give  them  liis  parting  benedic- 
tion, and  in  that  effort  breathed  his  last,  being  then  in  the 
seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

The  name  of  tliis  eminent  man,  thougli  not  so  well  known 
througliout  the  Latin  church  as  that  of  another  Irish  Saint, 
Columbanus,  with  whom  he  is  frequently  confounded*,  holds  a 
distinguished  place  among  the  Roman  and  other  martyrologies, 
and  in  the  British  Isles  will  long  be  remembered  with  tradi- 
tional veneration.  In  Ireland,  rich  as  have  been  her  annals  in 
names  of  saintly  renown,  for  none  has  she  continued  to  cherish 
so  fond  a  reverence,  through  all  ages,  as  for  her  great  Columb- 
kill ;  while  that  Isle  of  the  Wavesf,  with  which  his  name  is 
now  inseparably  connected,  and  which,  through  his  ministry, 
became  "  the  luminary  of  the  Caledonian  regions|,"  has  far 
less  reason  to  bo:ist  of  her  numerous  Tombs  of  Kings,  than  of 
those  heaps  ol'  voIino  pebbles  left  by  pilgrims  on  her  shore, 

*  Among  the  writers  who  have  been  led  into  this  confusion  is  M.  Thierry, 
(Hist,  de  la  Conquete  de  I'Angleterre),  who,  in  pursuance  of  his  professed  ob- 
ject,—that  of  making  his  history  picturesque,— has  jumbled  together  the  lives 
of  the  two  saints  most  graphically. 

t  Such,  according  to  some  writers,  is  the  meaning  of  the  term  lona. — See 
QarnetVs  Tour  in  the  Highlands,  vol.  i. 

I  "  We  were  now  treading  that  illustrious  island,  which  was  once  the  lu- 
minary of  the  Caledonian  regions.  That  man  is  little  to  be  envied,  whose 
patriotism  would  not  gain  force  upon  the  plain  of  Marathon,  or  whose  piety 
would  not  grow  warmer  upon  the  ruins  of  lona." — Dr.  Johnson's  Journey  to 
the  Western  Islands. 


216  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

marking  the  path  that  once  led  to  the  honoured  Shrine  of  her 
Saint.*  So  great  was  the  reverence  paid  to  his  remains  in 
North  Britain,  that,  at  the  time  when  the  island  of  Hy  began 
to  be  infested  by  the  Danes,  Kenneth  III.  had  his  bones  re- 
moved to  Dimkeld  on  the  river  Tay,  and  there  founding  a  church, 
dedicated  it  to  his  memory ;  while  the  Saint's  crosier,  antl  a 
few  other  relics,  were  all  that  fell  to  the  share  of  the  land  of 
his  bh'th.f 

In  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  for  the  year  1006,  we 
find  mention  made  of  a  splendid  copy  of  the  Four  Gospels, 
said  to  have  been  written  by  St.  Columba's  own  hand,  and  pre- 
served at  Kells  in  a  cover,  richly  ornamented  with  gold.|  In 
the  time  of  Usher,  this  precious  manuscript  was  still  numbered 
among  the  treasures  of  Kells^ ;  and  if  not  written  by  Columba 
himself,  is  little  doubted  to  have  been  the  work  of  one  of  his 
disciples. 

The  reigns  of  those  monarchs  who  filled,  in  succession,  the 
Irish  throne,  during  the  interval  which  the  acts  of  this  eminent 
man  occupied,  possess  little  interest  except  what  is  imparted  to 

*  "  The  Port  na  Curachan,  where  Columba  is  said  to  have  first  landed ;— a 
bay  towards  the  west,  which  is  marked  by  large  conical  heapsof  pebbles,  the 
j>enitentiary  labours,  as  tradition  says,  of  pilgrims  to  his  shrine." — Maccul- 
loch's  Western  Isles. 

t  Among  the  various  prophecies  attributed  to  St.  Columba,  the  arrival  of 
the  English  and  their  conquest  of  the  country  were,  it  is  said,  foretold  by 
him.  "Then,"  says  Giraldus,  "was  fulfilled  the  alleged  prophecy  of  Co- 
lumba,  of  Hihernia,  who  long  since  foretold  that,  in  this  war,  there  should 
be  so  great  a  slaughter  of  the  inhabitants,  that  their  enemies  would  swim 
up  to  the  knees  in  their  blood."  {Ilibern.  Expu^nat.  lib.  ii.  cap.  IG.)  There 
is  yet  another  remarkable  passage  of  this  prophecy,  which  adjourns  its  ful- 
filment to  a  very  remote  period.—"  The  Irish  are  said  to  have  four  prophets. 
Moling,  Braccan,  Patrick,  and  Columbkill,  whose  books,  written  in  the  Irish 
language,  are  still  extant;  and  speaking  of  this  conquest  ^by  the  English), 
they  all  bear  witness  that  in  after  limes  the  island  of  Ireland  will  be  polluted 
with  many  conflicts,  long  strife,  and  much  slaughter.  But  they  all  pronounce 
that  the  English  shall  not  have  a  complete  victory  till  but  a  very  little  before 
the  day  of  judgment."  "  Omues  testantur  eam  crebris  conflictibus,  longoque 
certamine  nuilta  in  po.sterum  tempora  multis  cffidibus  fteJaturam.  Sedvix 
parum  ante  diem  judicii  plenam  Anglorum  populo  victoriam  compomittunt." 
—{lb.  cap.  33.) 

j  Usher  mentions  also  another  copy  of  the  Gospels,  said  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  Columba's  own  hand,  which  had  been  preserved  at  the  monastery 
founded  by  that  Saint  at  Durrow.  "  Inter  cujus  KcifitjXta  Evangeliorum  co- 
dex vetustissimus  asservabatur,  quern  ipsius  Columbje  fuisse  monachi  dicti- 
labant:  ex  quo,  et  non  minoris  antiquitatis  altero,  eidem  Columbae  assig- 
nato(quem  in  urbe  Kells  sive  Kenlis  dicta  Midenses  sacrum  habent)  dili- 
gente  cum  editione  vulgata  Lalina  collatione  facta,  in  nostros  usus  varian- 
tium  lectionum  binos  libellos  concinnavimus."— iYcZcs.  Primord.  691. 

§  This  Kells  manuscript  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  same  now  preserved 
in  the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  on  the  margin  of  which  are  the 
following  words,  written  by  O'Flaherty,  in  the  year  1677:— "Liber  autem 
hie  scriptus  est  manu  ipsius  B.  Columbi." 


LIFE    AND    REIGN    OF    DIARMID.  217 

them  by  their  connexion  with  the  great  Saints  of  those  times. 
Uninteresting,  however,  as  are  the  events  of  these  reigns,  the 
historian  is  bound  not  to  pass  them  wholly  in  silence,  but  at 
least  to  number  the  royal  links  as  they  pass,  however  void  they 
may  be  of  lustre  or  value.  To  Murkertach,  the  last  oc-  ^  ^ 
cupant  of  the  throne  whom  we  have  noticed,  succeeded  ^^7' 
Tuathal  Maolgarb,  great-grandson  of  Nial  the  Great, 
during  v/hose  reign  of  eleven  years  the  only  events  that  stand 
out  prominently  in  his  annals,  are  the  death  of  the  aged  bishop 
Moctheus,  the  last  surviving  disciple  of  St.  Patrick,  and  the 
foundation  of  Columba's  favourite  establishment,  the  monastery 
of  Daire-Calgaich,  or  Derry.  His  successor  Diarmid's  life  and 
reign  are  somewhat  more  fertile  in  events.  With  the  fate 
common  to  most  Roydamnas,  or  successors  apparent,  he 
had  been,  throughout  the  reign  of  Tuathal,  an  object  ^oq' 
of  jealousy  and  suspicion ;  and  was  even,  for  some  time, 
tlirough  fear  of  persecution,  obliged  to  conceal  himself  among 
the  islets  of  Lough  Rie.  It  was  here,  doubtless,  that  his  friend- 
ship with  St.  Kieran,  the  eminent  founder  of  Clonmacnoi*!, 
commenced ;  and  either  then,  or  on  his  accession  to  the  mo- 
narchy, he  made  a  grant  of  one  of  the  islands  to  this  Saint, 
who,  building  a  monastery  upon  the  spot,  was  soon  joined  by  a 
numerous  company  of  monks,  and  called  up  around  him,  in 
those  solitudes,  the  voice  of  psalmody  and  prayer.  By  the 
same  royal  patronage,  he  was  enabled,  not  many  years  after, 
to  accomplish  a  still  greater  design ;  for,  a  site  being  granted 
to  him,  by  the  monarch,  on  the  western  bank  of  the  Shannon*, 
St.  Kieran  founded  there  that  great  monastery  of  Clonmacnois, 
which  became  in  after-times  so  celebrated  for  its  nine  Royal 
Churches,  and  all  those  luxuries  of  ecclesiastical  architecture 
which  gathered  around  its  site.f 

In  the  reign  of  this  monarch,  the  ancient  Hall  or 
Court  of  Tara,  in  which,  for  so  many  centuries,  the   f-',-. ' 
Triennial  Councils  of  the  nation  had  been  held,  saw, 
for  the  last  time,  her  kings  and  nobles  assembled  within  its 
precincts ;  and  the  cause  of  the  desertion  of  this  long  honoured 
seat  of  legislation  shows  to  what  an  enormous  height  the  pow- 
er of  the  ecclesiastical  order  had  then  risen.     Some  fugitive 
criminal,  who  had  fled  for  sanctuary  to  the  monastery  of  St. 
Ruan,  having  been  dragged  forcibly  from  thence  to  Tara,  and 
there  put  to  death,  the  holy  abbot  and  his  monks  cried  aloud 

*  Among  the  lands  bestowed  for  this  purpose,  were  some  contiguous  to 
Mount  Usneach,  which  had  been  formerly  occupied  by  the  Druids. 
t  See,  for  an  account  of  these  churches,  Ware,  vol.  i. 

Vol.  I.  19 


218  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

against  the  sacrilegious  violation ;  and  proceeding  in  solemn 
procession  to  the  Palace,  pronounced  a  curse  upon  its  walls. 
"From  that  day,"  say  the  annalists,  "no  king  ever  sat  again 
at  Tara;"  and  a  poet  who  wrote  about  that  period,  while 
mourning  evidently  over  the  fall  of  this  seat  of  grandeur,  ven- 
tures but  to  say,  "  It  is  not  with  my  will  that  Teamor  is  desert- 
ed."* A  striking  memorial  of  the  church's  triumph  on  the 
occasion,  was  preserved  in  the  name  of  distinction  given  to 
the  monasteryt,  which  was,  ever  after,  in  memory  of  this  male- 
diction, called  "  The  Monastery  of  the  Curses  of  Ireland." 

On  the  death  of  Diarmid,  w}io,  after  a  reign  of  twen- 
PSQQ  ty-one  years,  was  killed  by  Aldus,  a  Dalriadian  prince, 
*  ■  surnamed  the  Black,  the  crown  reverted  to  the  Eugenian 
branch  of  tlie  northern  Nials ;  and  two  brothers,  Donald  and 
Fergus,  who  had  fought  with  success  against  the  Nials  of 
the  South,  in  the  great  battle  of  Culdremni,  were  elevated 
to  the  sovereignty.  The  joint  reign  of  these  royal  brothers 
lasted  but  for  a  year]:,  during  which  an  invasion  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Leinster  for  the  enforcement  of  the  odious  tribute, 
and  a  furious  battle  in  consequence,  on  the  banks  of  the  Liffey, 
in  which  the  Lagenians  were  defeated,  marked  with  the  ac- 
customed track  of  blood  the  short  term  of  their  copartnership. 
To  these  succeeded  another  pair  of  associates  in  the  throne, 
named  Boetan  and  Eochad  ;  and  after  them,  at  an  interval  of 
but  two  years,  Anmcrius,  or  Anmery,  a  prince,  remarkable,  it 
is  said,  for  learning,  who,  after  reigning  little  more  than  the 
same  period,  was  cut  off  by  a  violent  death ;  as  was  also  his 
successor,  Boetan  the  Second,  in  the  course  of  less  than  a  year. 
The  prince  raised  to  the  sovereignty  after  this  last-named  mo- 
narch was  that  Adius,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken, — 
memorable  for  the  great  convention  which  he  held  at  Drum- 
ceat, — and  whose  reign,  far  more  fortunate  than  the  passing 
pageants  which  had  gone  before  him,  lasted  for  the  long  space 
of  six-and-twenty  years. 

To  give  an  account  of  all  the  numerous  Saints,  male  and 
female,  whom  the  fervent  zeal  of  this  period  quickened  into 
existence  and  celebrity,  would  be  a  task  so  extensive  as  to  re- 
quire a  distinct  historian  to  itself;  and,  luckily,  this  important 
part  of  Ireland's  history,  during  her  first  Christian  ages,  has 

*  Irish  Hymn,  attributed  to  Fiech,  a  disciple  of  St.  Patrick,  but  evidently, 
from  this  allusion  to  the  desertion  of  Tara,  written  at  least  as  late  as  tlie 
time  of  King  Diarmid. 

t  Annal.  Ulton.  ad  ann.  5G4,  note. 

J  O'Flaherty.    The  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  prolong  it  to  three  years. 


ST.  BRIGID.  219 

been  treated  fully,  and  with  the  most  sifting  zeal  and  industry, 
by  a  writer  in  every  respect  qualified  for  such  a  task,  and  who 
has  left  no  part  of  his  ample  subject  untouched  or  unexplored.* 
Referring,  therefore,  to  this  learned  historian  for  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  the  early  Irish  Church,  I  shall  notice  such  only  of  its 
most  distinguished  ornaments  as  became  popularly  known 
throughout  Europe,  and  regained  for  the  "  tSacred  Island"  of 
other  days,  all  its  ancient  fame,  under  the  new  Christian  de- 
signation of  "  the  Island  of  Saints." 

The  institution  of  female  monasteries,  or  nunneries,  such  as, 
in  the  fourth  century,  were  established  abroad  by  Melania,  and 
other  pious  women,  was  introduced  into  Ireland,  towards  the 
close  of  the  fifth  century,  by  St.  Brigid ;  and  so  general  was 
the  enthusiasm  her  example  excited,  that  the  religious  order 
which  she  instituted  spread  its  branches  through  every  part  of 
the  country.  Taking  the  veil  herself  at  a  very  early  age, 
when,  as  we  are  told,  she  was  clothed  in  the  white  garment, 
and  the  white  veil  placed  upon  her  head,  she  was  immediately 
followed,  in  this  step,  by  seven  or  eight  other  young  maidens, 
who,  attaching  themselves  to  her  fortunes,  formed,  at  the  first, 
her  small  religious  community.!  The  pure  sanctity  of  this 
virgin's  life,  and  the  supernatural  gifts  attributed  to  her,  spread 
the  fame  she  had  acquired  more  widely  every  day,  and  crowds 
of  young  women  and  widows  applied  for  admission  into  her 
institution.  At  first  she  contented  herself  with  founding  es- 
tablishments for  her  followers  in  the  respective  districts  of 
which  they  were  natives ;  and  in  this  task  the  bishops  of  the 
different  dioceses  appear  to  have  concurred  with  and  assisted 
her.  But  the  increasing  number  of  those  who  required  her 
own  immediate  superintendence  rendered  it  necessary  to  form 
some  one  great  establishment,  over  which  she  should  herself 
preside  ;  and  the  people  of  Leinster,  who  claimed  to  be  pecu- 
liarly entitled  to  her  presence,  from  the  illustrious  family  to 
which  she  belonged  having  been  natives  of  their  province,  sent 
a  deputation  to  her,  to  entreat  that  she  would  fix  among  them 
her  residence.  To  this  request  the  Saint  assented  ;  and  a 
liabitation  was  immediately  provided  for  herself  and  her  sister 
nuns,  which  formed  the  commencement  both  of  her  great  mo- 
nastery and  of  the  town  or  city  of  Kildare.     The  name  of 

*  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland,  by  the  Rev.  John  Lanigan,  D.  D. 

t  The  bishop  who  admitted  her  into  the  number  of  Sacred  Virgins,  was 
named  Maccaile,  or  Maccaleus ;  and  the  ceremony  is  thus  described  by  her 
biographer,  Cogitosus: — "  Q,ui  (Maccaleus)  cffileste  intuens  desiderum  et  pudi- 
citiam,  et  tantum  tastitatis  amorem  in  tali  virgine,  pallium  album  et  vestem 
candidam  super  ipsius  venerabile  caput  imposuit."— Cap.  3. 


220  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Kill-dara*f  or  Cell  of  the  Oak,  was  given  to  the  monastery, 
from  a  very  high  oak-tree  which  grew  near  the  spot,  and  of 
which  the  trunk  was  still  remaining  in  the  twelfth  century ; — 
no  one  daring,  as  we  are  told  by  Giraldus,  to  touch  it  with  a 
knife.  The  extraordinary  veneration  in  which  St.  Brigid  was 
held,  caused  such  a  resort  of  persons  of  all  ranks  to  this  place 
— such  crowds  of  penitents,  pilgrims,  and  mendicants — that  a 
new  town  sprang  up  rapidly  around  her,  which  kept  pace  with 
the  growing  prosperity  of  the  establishment.  The  necessity 
of  providing  spiritual  direction,  as  well  for  the  institution  itself, 
as  for  the  numerous  settlers  in  the  new  town,  led  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  bishop  of  Kildare,  with  the  then  usual  privi- 
lege of  presiding  over  all  the  churches  and  communities  be- 
longing to  the  order  of  St.  Brigid,  throughout  the  kingdom. 

Among  the  eminent  persons  wlio  were  in  the  habit  of  visit- 
ing or  corresponding  with  tliis  remarkable  woman,  are  men- 
tioned St.  Ailbe,  of  Emly,  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Irish  church, 
and  the  Welsh  author,  Gildas,  who  is  said  to  have  sent  to  St. 
Brigid,  as  a  token  of  his  regard,  a  small  bell  cast  by  himself  f 
By  one  of  those  violations  of  chronology  not  unfrequently 
hazarded  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  extraordinary  personages 
together,  an  intimate  friendship  is  supposed  to  have  existed 
between  St.  Brigid  and  St.  Patrick,  and  she  is  even  said  to 
have  woven,  at  the  apostle's  own  request,  the  shroud  in  which 
he  was  buried.  But  with  this  imagined  intercourse  between 
the  two  Saints,  the  dates  of  their  respective  lives  are  incon- 
sistent ;  and  it  is  but  just  possible  that  Brigid  might  have  seen 
the  great  apostle  of  her  country,  as  she  was  a  child  of  about 
twelve  years  old  when  he  died. 

Among  the  miracles  and  gifts  by  which,  no  less  than  by  her 
works  of  charity  and  holiness,  the  fame  of  St.  Brigid  and  her 
numerous  altars  was  extended,  has  always  been  mentioned, 
though  on  the  sole  authority  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  that  per- 
petual Fire,  at  Kildare,  over  which,  through  successive  ages, 

*  Ilia  jam  cella  Scotice  dicitiir  Kill-dara,  Latine  vero  sonat  Cclla  Qncrcus. 
Q,uercus  eniin  altissima  ibi  erat,  ciijus  stipes  adhuc  manet.— S.  Brigid.  Vita. 

t  A  veneration  for  small  portable  bells,  as  well  as  for  staves,  which  had 
once  belonged  to  holy  persons,  was,  in  the  time  of  Giraldus,  common  both 
among  the  laity  and  clergy.  "  Campanus  baiulas,  baculos  quoque  in  supe- 
riori  parte  cameratos,  auro  et  argento  vel  are  contectos,  aliasque  hujusmodi 
sanctorum  reliquias,  in  magna  reverentia  tarn  HyberniiB  et  Scotise,  quam  et 
Walliffl  populus  et  clerus  habere  Bolent. "—Itlner.  Camb.  lib.  i.  cap.  2.  The 
same  writer  mentions  the  Campana  Fugitiva  of  O'Toole,  the  chieftain  of 
Wicklow ;  and  we  are  informed  by  Colgan  (in  Triad.)  that  whenever  St. 
Patrick's  portable  bell  tolled,  as  a  preservative  against  evil  spirits  and  magi- 
cians, it  was  heard  from  the  Giant's  Causeway  to  Cape  Clear,  from  the  Hill 
of  Howth  to  the  western  shores  of  Connemara,  "  per  totam  Hiberniam."  Sea 
note  on  this  subject  in  Hardman's  Irish  Minstrels,  vol.  i. 


ST.    BRIGID.  221 

tlie  Iioly  virgins  are  said  to  have  kept  constant  watcli ;  and 
which,  so  late  as  the  time  of  Giraldus,  about  six  liundred  years 
from  the  date  of  Si.  Brigid,  was,  as  he  tells  us,  still  unex- 
tinguished. Whether  this  rite  formed  any  part  of  the  Saint's 
original  institution*,  or  is  to  be  considered  but  as  an  irniovation 
of  later  times,  it  is,  at  all  events,  certain  that  at  the  time  when 
Kildare  was  founded,  the  policy  of  converting  to  the  purposes 
of  the  new  faith  those  ancient  ibrms  and  usages  which  had  so 
long  been  made  to  serve  as  instruments  of  error,  was  very 
generally  acted  upon ;  and,  in  the  very  choice  of  a  site  for  St. 
Brigid's  monastery,  the  same  principle  is  manifest;  the  old 
venerable  oak,  already  invested  with  the  solemnity  of  Druidical 
associations,  having,  in  this,  as  in  most  other  instances  of  reli- 
gious foundation,  suggested  the  selection  of  the  spot  where  the 
Christian  temple  was  to  rise. 

Having  lived  to  reap  the  reward  of  her  self-devotion  and 
zeal,  in  the  perfect  success  and  even  ascendency  of  the  insti- 
tution which  she  had  founded,  St.  Brigid  clewed  her  mortal 
course  at  Kildare,  about  a.  d,  525,  four  years,  it  is  calculated, 
after  the  birth  of  the  great  Columbkillf,  being  herself,  at  the 
time  of  her  death,  about  74  years  of  age.  The  honour  of  pos- 
sessing the  remains  of  this  holy  woman  was,  for  many  centuries, 
contested  not  only  by  different  parts  of  Ireland,  but  likewise 
by  North  Britain ;  the  Irish  of  Ulster  contending  strenuously 
that  she  had  been  buried,  not  at  Kildare,  but  in  Down| ;  while 
the  Picts  as  strongly  insisted  that  Abernethy  was  her  resting- 
place  ;  and  the  British  Scots,  after  annexing  the  Pictish  terri- 
tories to  their  own,  paid  the  most  fervent  homage  to  her  sup- 
posed relics  in  that  city.  But  in  no  place,  except  at  Kildare,  was 
her  memory  cherished  with  such  affectionate  reverence  as  in 
that  seat  of  all  saintly  worship,  the  Western  Isles ;  where  to 

*  Dr.  Lanigan  rcpols  indignantly  the  notion  of  liCdwicli  and  others,  that 
St.  Brigid,  and  her  sister  nuns  of  Kildare,  were  "  but  a  continuation  of  heathen 
Druidesses,  who  preserved  from  remotest  ages  an  inextinguishable  fire." 
There  is,  however,  an  ordinance  of  Scriptural  authority,  inSvhich  St.  Brigid 
may  have  found  a  sanction  for  her  shrines.  "  The  fire  upon  the  altar  (of  th<; 
tabernacle)  shall  he  burning  in  it,  and  shall  not  be  put  nnt."— Leviticus,  ch.  vi. 
ver.  12.  It  was  for  contemning  this  inextinguishable  fire,  and  using  a  profane 
fire  in  its  stead,  that  the  Levitcs  Nadab  and  Abihu  were  miraculously  put  to 
death.    See  Dr.  Milner's  Inquiry,  letter  11. 

t  According  to  other  accounts,  he  was  born  about  539,—"  A  date  much 
earlier,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "than  that  of  Mabillon  and  others,  but  much 
more  probable." 

J  The  claims  of  Down  to  the  possession  of  her  remains,  as  well  as  of  those 
of  St.  Patrick  and  St.  Columba,  are  commemorated  in  the  following  couplet, 
cited  by  Camden  :— 

"  Hi  tres  in  Duno  tumulo  tumulantur  in  uno 
Brigida,  Patricius  atque  Columba  pius." 

19* 


222  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  patronage  of  St.  Brigid  most  of  the  churches  were  dedi- 
cated: by  her  name,  one  of  the  most  solemn  oaths  of  the 
islanders  was  sworn ;  and  the  first  of  February,  every  year, 
was  held  as  a  festival  in  her  honour.* 

It  has  been  already  observed  that  the  eminent  Irish 
■^p-Q*  Saint,  Columbkill,  has  been  often  confounded,  more 
especially  by  foreign  writers,  with  his  namesake,  Co- 
lumba,  or  Columbanus,  whose  fame,  from  the  theatre  of  his 
holy  labours  having  been  chiefly  France  and  Italy,  has,  among 
the  people  of  the  Continent,  obscured  or  rather  absorbed  within 
its  own  light  that  of  the  apostle  of  the  Western  Isles.  The 
time  of  the  birth  of  St.  Columbanus  is  placed  about  forty  years 
later  than  that  of  Columbkill,  a.  d.  559 ;  and  though  not  of 
royal  extraction,  like  his  distinguished  precursor,  he  appears 
to  have  been  of  a  noble  family,  and  also  endowed  by  nature 
with  what  he  himself  considered  to  be  a  perilous  gift,  personal 
beauty.  In  order  to  escape  tlie  dangerous  allurements  of  the 
world,  lie  withdrew  from  his  native  province,  Leinster ;  and, 
after  some  time  passed  in  sacred  studies,  resolved  to  devote 
himself  to  a  monastic  life.  The  monastery  of  Bangor,  in  Ulster, 
already  celebrated  in  Ireland,  but  by  the  subsequent  career  of 
St  Columbanus,  rendered  famous  throughout  all  Europe,  was 
the  retreat  chosen  by  this  future  antagonist  of  pontiffs  and 
kings ;  and  at  that  school  he  remained,  under  the  discipline  of 
the  pious  St.  Congall,  for  many  years.  At  length,  longing  for 
a  more  extended  sphere  of  action,  he  resolved  to  betake  him- 
self to  some  foreign  land ;  and  having,  at  the  desire  of  the 
abbot,  selected  from  among  his  brethren,  twelve  worthy  com- 
panions, turned  his  eyes  to  tlie  state  of  the  Gauls,  or  France, 
as  requiring  especially  such  a  mission  as  he  meditated.  By 
the  successive  irruptions  of  the  northern  barbarians  into  that 
country,  all  the  elements  of  civilized  life  had  been  dispersed, 
and  a  frightful  process  of  demoralization  was  now  rapidly 
taking  place,  to  which  a  clergy,  indolent  and  torpid,  and  often 
even  interested  in  the  success  of  the  spoilers,  could  oppose  but 
a  feeble  check.f  For  a  missionary,  therefore,  like  Columbanus, 

*  "  From  those  considerations,"  says  Macpherson,  "  we  have  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  the  Western  Isles  of  Scotland  were,  in  some  one  period  or  other, 
during  the  reign  of  popery,  and  perhaps  in  a  great  measure  appropriated  to 
St.  Brigid.— Crit.  Dissert. 

In  Gaelic,  the  name  of  Brigid  is,  according  to  this  writer.  Bride;  and  by 
Hebrides,  or  Ey-brides,  is  meant,  he  says,  the  Islands  of  Brigid. 

t  This  state  of  things  is  acknowledged  by  the  saint's  biographer,  Jonas  :— 
"  Ubi  tunc  vel  ob  frequentiam  hostium  externorum,  vel  negligentiam  prcesu- 
lum,  religionis  virtus  pene  abolita  habebatur ;  fides  tantum  remanebat  Chris- 
tiana. Nam  poenitentiae  medicamentum  et  mortificationis  amor  vix  vel 
paucis  in  illis  reperiebatur  locis."— S.  Columban.  Vita. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS.  223 

full  of  courage  in  the  cause  of  Christ,  there  could  not  have 
been  selected  a  more  inviting  or  productive  field  of  enterprise. 

Proceeding  to  the  province  which  has  been  since  called 
Tranche  Comte,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  his  ministry  was  to 
erect  a  monastery  on  a  spot  named  Luxeuil,  in  a  thick  part  of 
the  forest,  at  the  foot  of  the  Vosges.  From  hence  so  widely 
was  the  fame  of  his  sanctity  difflised,  and  so  great  the  con- 
course of  persons,  of  all  ranks,  but  more  especially,  as  we  are 
told,  of  young  nobles,  who  came  to  profit  by  his  instructions, 
and  devote  themselves  to  a  religious  life,  that  he  found  it 
necessary  to  establish  a  second  monastery  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, to  which,  on  account  of  the  abundance  of  its  springs,  he 
gave  the  name  of  Fontaines.*  In  times,  however,  when  the 
priest  alone  could  present  any  effectual  countercheck  to  the 
soldier,  so  active  and  daring  a  mind  as  that  of  the  abbot  of 
Luxeuil  could  not  long  remain  uninvolved  in  public  strife ;  and 
his  courageous  frankness  in  reproving  the  vices  of  the  young 
Thierry,  king  of  Burgundy,  drew  upon  him  the  enmity  as  well 
of  that  prince  as  of  the  fierce  vindictive  queen-dowager, 
Bruenehaut.  The  details  of  the  scenes  and  transactions  in 
which,  so  perilously  to  his  own  safety,  the  Irish  Saint  was 
brought  into  collision  with  these  barbarian  potentates,  besides 
that  they  belong  more  properly  to  foreign  history,  would  usurp 
a  space,  perhaps,  disproportionate  to  their  interest.  They  will 
be  found  worthy,  however,  of  a  brief,  passing  notice,  less  as 
history,  than  as  pictures  for  the  imagination,  in  which  the 
figure  of  the  stem  but  simple  and  accomplished  missionary 
stands  out  to  the  eye  with  the  more  force  and  dignity  from  the 
barbaric  glare  and  pomp  of  the  scenes  and  personages  around 
him. 

Thus,  on  one  occasion,  w^ien  the  queen-dowager,  seeing  him 
enter  the  royal  courts,  brought  forth  the  four  illegitimate  chil- 
dren of  king  Thierry  to  meet  him,  the  saint  emphatically  de- 

"  The  clergy  of  the  Roman  church,"  says  Mr.  James,  (Hist,  of  Charlemagne, 
Introduct.)  "  thickly  spread  over  every  part  of  Gaul,  without  excepting  the 
dominions  of  Aquitaine  and  Burgundy,  had  already  courted  the  Franks,  even 
when  governed  by  a  heathen  monarch  ;  but  now  that  he  professed  the  same 
faith  with  themselves,  they  spared  neither  exertions  nor  intrigues  to  facili- 
tate the  progress  of  his  conquests." 

*  In  speaking  of  this  monastery,  the  Benedictines  say,  "  Fontaines  n'est 
plus  aujourdhui  qu'un  Prieur6  dependant  de  Luxeu."  On  the  latter  establish- 
ment they  pronounce  the  following  eulogium  :— "  Les  grands  hommes  qui  en 
sortirent  en  bon  nombre,  tant  pour  gouverner  des  eglises  entieres  que  de 
simples  monasteres,  r6pandirent  en  tant  d'endroits  les  maximes  salutaires  de 
ce  sacre  desert  que  plusieurs  de  nos  provinces  pariirent  avoir  chang6  de  face. 
Fit  a  qui  doit  revenir  la  principale  gloire  de  tous  ces  avantages,  sinon  a  leur 
premier  Institeur  le  B.  Columban  ?" 


224  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

manded  what  they  wanted.  "  They  are  the  king's  children," 
answered  Brunehaut,  "  and  are  come  to  ask  your  blessing." — 
"These  children,"  replied  Columbanus,  "will  never  reign: 
they  are  the  offspring  of  debauchery."  Such  insulting  oppo- 
sition to  her  designs  for  her  grandchildren  roused  all  the  rage 
of  this  Jezebel,  and  orders  were  issued  withdrawing  some  pri- 
vileges which  the  saint's  monasteries  had  hitherto  enjoyed. 
For  the  purpose  of  remonstrating  against  this  wrong,  he  sought 
the  palace  of  the  king;  and,  while  waiting  the  royal  audience, 
rich  viands  and  wines  were  served  up  for  his  refreshment. 
But  the  saint  sternly  refused  to  partake  of  them,  saying,  "  It  is 
written,  '  the  Most  High  rejects  the  gifts  of  the  impious ;'  nor 
is  it  fitting  that  the  mouths  of  the  servants  of  God  should  be 
defiled  with  the  viands  of  one  who  inflicts  on  them  such  indig- 
nities." 

Another  scene  of  the  same  description  occurred  subsequently 
at  Luxeuil.  The  monastic  Rule  introduced  into  France  by 
Columbanus,  though  afterwards  incorporated,  or  rather  con- 
founded with  that  of  St.  Benedict*,  was  derived  originally  from 
the  discipline  established  at  the  monastery  of  Bangor,  in  Ire- 
land ;  and  one  of  the  regulations  most  objected  to,  in  the  sys- 
tem followed  both  at  Luxeuil  and  Fontaines,  was  that  by  which 
access  to  the  interior  of  these  monasteries  was  restricted.  On 
this  point,  as  on  many  others,  an  attempt  was  made,  by  the  re- 
vengeful Brunehaut,  to  excite  a  persecution  against  the  saint ; 
and  the  king,  envenomed  by  her  representations,  was  induced 
to  join  in  her  plans.  Resolved  to  try  the  right  of  entrance  in 
person,  he  proceeded,  accompanied  by  a  train  of  nobles,  to 
the  monastery  ;  and  finding  Columbanus  himself  at  the  gate, 
said,  as  he  forced  his  way  in,  "  If  you  desire  to  derive  any 
benefit  from  our  bounty,  these  places  must  be  tlirown  open  to 
every  comer."  He  had  already  got  as  far  as  the  Refectory, 
when,  with  a  courage  worthy  of  a  St.  Ambrose,  Columbanus 
thus  addressed  him : — "  If  you  endeavour  to  violate  the  disci- 
pline here  established,  know  that  I  dispense  with  your  pre- 
sents, and  with  every  aid  that  it  is  in  your  power  to  lend ;  and, 
if  you  now  come  hither  to  disturb  the  monasteries  of  the  ser- 
vants of  God,  I  tell  you  that  your  kingdom  shall  be  destroyed, 
and  with  it  all  your  royal  race."  The  king,  terrified,  it  is  said, 
by  this  denunciation,  immediately  withdrew. 

*  See,  for  several  instances  in  which  the  two  rules  are  thus  confounded, 
Usher's  Ecclesiar.  Primord.  1050.  "  Non  quod  una  eademque  esset  utriusque 
Regula ;  sed  quod  Columbani  sectatores,  majoris  profectus  ergo,  duas  illas 
celeberrimas  asceticae  vitac  normas  conjunxissent,  qua?  mediis  hisce  tempori- 
bus  in  Italia,  Gallia,  et  Germania  sola)  enitebant  et  apparebant."— ITsser. 


ST.  COLUMBANUS.  225 

A  speech  attributed  to  the  Burgundian  monarcli,  on  this  oc- 
casion, betrays  no  want  either  of  tolerance  or  of  the  good  sense 
from  which  that  virtue  springs.  "  I  perceive  you  hope,"  said 
he  to  Columbanus,  "  that  I  shall  give  you  the  crown  of  martyr- 
dom ;  but  I  am  not  so  unwise  as  to  commit  so  heinous  a  crime. 
As  your  system,  however,  differs  from  that  of  all  other  times, 
it  is  but  right  that  you  should  return  to  the  place  from  whence 
you  came."  Such  a  suggestion,  from  royal  lips,  was  a  com- 
mand ;  but  the  noble  Scot  was  not  so  easily  to  be  separated 
either  from  the  companions  who  had  followed  his  fortunes  from 
home,  or  those  friendships  he  had  formed  in  a  strange  land. 
"  If  they  would  have  me  depart,"  said  he,  "  they  must  drag  me 
from  the  cloister  by  force :" — and  to  these  violent  means  it  was 
found  necessary,  at  last,  to  have  recourse ;  a  party  of  soldiers 
having  been  ordered  by  his  royal  persecutors  to  proceed  to 
Luxeuil,  and  drive  him  from  the  monastery.  The  whole  of  the 
brotherhood  expressed  their  readiness  to  follow  their  abbot  to 
any  part  of  tlie  world  ;  but  none  were  allowed  to  accompany 
him  except  his  own  countrymen,  and  such  few  Britons  as  had 
attached  themselves  to  the  community.  A  corps  of 
guards  was  sent  to  escort  them  on  their  route  towards  ^■,^* 
Ireland,  and  it  was  to  the  commander  of  this  escort 
that,  on  their  arrival  at  Auxerre,  Columbanus  pronounced  that 
terrible  prediction,  as  it  has  been  called,  of  the  union  of  all  the 
crowns  of  France  on  the  single  head  of  Clotaire : — "  Remem- 
ber what  I  now  tell  you,"  said  the  intrepid  monk  ;  "  that  very 
Clotaire  whom  ye  now  despise  will,  in  three  years'  time,  be 
your  master." 

On  the  arrival  of  the  saint  and  his  companions  at  Nantes, 
where  it  was  meant  to  embark  them  for  Ireland,  a  fortunate 
accident  occurred  to  prevent  the  voyage ;  and  he  was  still  re- 
served for  those  further  toils  in  foreign  lands  to  which  he  had 
felt  himself  called.  Being  now  free  to  pursue  his  own  course, 
he  visited  successively  the  courts  of  Clotaire  and  Theodobert, 
by  both  of  whom  he  was  received  with  marked  distinction,  and 
even  consulted  on  matters  vital  to  the  interests  of  his  kingdom 
by  Clotaire.  After  an  active  course  of  missionary  labours 
throughout  various  parts  of  France  and  Germany,  the  saint, 
fearful  of  again  falling  into  the  hands  of  his  persecutors,  Brune- 
haut  and  Thierry,  whose  powers  of  mischief  their  late  suc- 
cesses had  much  strengthened,  resolved  to  pass  with  his  faithful 
companions  into  Italy ;  and,  arriving  at  Milan,  at  the  court  of 
Agilulph,  king  of  the  Lombards,  received  from  that  sovereign 
and  his  distinguished  queen,  Theodelinda,  the  most  cordial 
attentions. 


226  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

It  is  supposed  to  have  been  during  his  stay  at  Milan  that 
Columbanus  addressed  that  spirited  letter  to  Boniface  IV.,  re- 
specting the  question  of  the  Three  Chapters,  in  which,  distin- 
guishing between  the  Chair  of  Rome  and  the  individual  who 
may,  for  the  moment,  occupy  it,  he  shows  how  compatible  may 
be  the  most  profound  and  implicit  reverence  towards  the  papa- 
cy, with  a  tone  of  stern  and  uncompromising  reprehension 
towards  the  pope.  The  decision  of  the  Fifth  General  Council, 
held  in  the  year  553,  which  condemned  the  writings  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Three  Chapters,  as  heterodox,  had  met  with 
considerable  opposition  from  many  of  the  Western  bishops ; 
and  those  of  Histria  and  Liguria  were  the  most  obstinate  in 
their  schism.  The  queen  Theodelinda,  who  had  so  much  dis- 
tinguished herself  in  the  earlier  part  of  her  reign  by  the  vigour 
with  which  she  had  freed  her  kingdom  from  the  inroads  of 
Arianism,  had,  not  many  yeaVs  before  the  arrival  of  Columba- 
nus at  Milan,  awakened  the  alarm  of  the  Roman  court  by 
treatmg  with  marked  favour  and  encouragement  the  schismatic 
bishops  of  Histria ;  and  it  was  only  by  a  course  of  skilful  ma- 
nagement that  St.  Gregory  averted  the  danger,  or  succeeded 
in  drawing  back  this  princess  to  her  former  union  with  the 
church.  It  would  appear,  however,  that,  after  the  death  of 
that  great  pope,  the  Lombard  court  had  again  lallen  off  into 
schism ; — for  it  was  confessedly  at  the  strong  instance  of  Agi- 
lulpli  himself,  that  Columbanus  addressed  his  expostulatory 
letter  to  pope  Boniface* ;  and  the  views  which  he  takes  of  the 
question  in  that  remarkable  document,  are,  for  tlie  most  part, 
those  of  the  schismatics  or  defenders  of  the  Three  Chapters. 
Setting  aside,  however,  all  consideration  of  the  saint's  ortho- 
doxy on  this  pointf,  his  letter  cannot  but  be  allowed  the  praise 
of  unshrinking  manliness  and  vigour.  Addressing  Boniface 
himself  in  no  very  complaisant  terms,  he  speaks  of  his  prede- 

*  Among  other  passages,  to  this  purport,  in  his  letter,  is  the  following  :— 
"  A  rege  cogor  ut  sigillatini  suggeram  tuis  piis  auribus  sui  negotium  doloris. 
Dolor  namque  suus  est  schisma  populi  pro  regina,  pro  filio,  forte  et  pro  se 
ipso." 

t  The  Benedictines  thus  account  for  the  part  which  he  took  on  this  ques- 
tion:— "  St.  Coluniban,  au  rcste,  ne  parle  de  la  sorte  dans  cette  lettre  que 
parcequ'il  6tait  mal  instruit  de  la  grande  aflaire  des  Trois  Chapitres ;  et  qu'il 
avait  6t6  sans  doute  prevenu  a  ce  sujet  par  Agilulfe,  qui  s'en  etait  declare  le 
fauteur,  et  peut-etre  par  quelques  uns  des  schismaliques  de  Lombardie." — 
Hist.  Liu.  de  la  France,  torn.  iv. 

A  letter  of  Pope  Gregory,  on  the  subject  of  this  now-forgotten  controversy, 
lias  been  erroneously  supposed  to  have  been  addressed  to  the  Irish : — "  Grego- 
rius  universis  Episcopis  ad  Hiberniam,"  as  the  epistle  is  headed  in  some  old 
editions  of  Gregory's  works.  But  it  is  plain  that  "  Hiberniam"  has  been  sub- 
stituted, by  mistake,  for  "  Histriam,"  in  which  latter  country  the  schism  on 
this  point  chiefly  raged.    See  Dr.  Lanigan,  chap.  13,  note  57. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS.  227 

cesser,  pope  Vigilius,  with  bitter  and,  in  some  respects,  de- 
served reproach;  declaring"  that  pope  to  have  been  the  prime 
mover  of  all  the  scandal  that  had  occurred  *  With  national 
warmth,  too,  he  boldly  vindicates  the  perfect  orthodoxy  of  his 
fellow-countrymen,  the  Irish,  assuring  Boniface  that  they  had 
never  yet  swerved  from  the  apostolic  doctrines  delivered  to 
them  by  Rome ;  and  that  there  had  never  been  among  them 
any  heretics,  Jews,  or  schismatics.f 

Having  received  permission  from  king  Agilulph  to  fix 
himself  in  whatever  part  of  the  Lombard  dominions  he  ^i  e* 
should  think  fit,  Columbanus  selected  a  retired  spot 
amidst  the  Apennines ;  and,  founding  there  the  monastery  of 
Bobbio,  passed  in  that  retreat  the  brief  remainder  of  his  days ; 
dying  on  the  21st  of  November,  a.  d.  6154 

The  various  countries  and  places  with  which  the  name  of 
this  great  saint  is  connected,  have  multiplied  his  lasting  titles 
to  fame.  While  Ireland  boasts  of  his  birth,  and  of  having  sent 
forth,  before  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  so  accomplished  a 
writer  from  her  schools,  France  remembers  him  by  her  ancient 
abbeys  of  Luxeuil  and  Fontaines ;  and  his  fame  in  Italy  still 
lives,  not  only  in  the  cherished  relics  at  Bobbio, — in  the  coffin, 
the  chalice,  the  holly  staff  of  the  founder,  and  the  strange  sight 
of  an  Irish  missal  in  a  foreign  land^, — but  in  the  yet  fresher 
and  more  every-day  remembrance  bestowed  upon  his  name  by 
its  association  with  the  beautifully  situated  town  of  San  Co- 
limnbano,  in  the  territory  of  Lodi. 

The  writings  of  this  eminent  man  that  have  come  down  to 
us  display  an  extensive  and  varied  acquaintance,  not  merely 

*  Vigila,  quia  forte  non  bene  vigilavit  Vigilius,  quern  caput  scandal!  ipsi 
clamant. 

t  Nullus  hacreticus,  nullus  Judieus,  nullus  schismaticus  fuit :  sed  fides  catho- 
Jica,  sicut  a  vobis  primum,  sanctorum  scilicet  apostolorum  successoribus, 
tradita  est,  inconcussa  tenetur. 

J  Among  the  poetical  remains  of  Columbanus  are  some  verses,  of  no  incon- 
siderable merit,  in  which  he  mentions  his  having  then  reached  the  years  of 
an  eighteenth  Olympiad.  The  poem  is  addressed  to  his  friend  Fedolius,  and 
concludes  as  follows : — 

"  Htec  tibi  dictaram  morbis  oppressus  acerbis 
Corpore  quos  fragili  patior,  tristique  senecta ! 
Nam  dum  prsRcipiti  labuntur  tempora  cursu, 
Nunc  ad  Olympiadis  ter  senos  venimus  annos. 
Omnia  pra;tereunt,  fugit  irreparabile  tempus. 
Vive,  vale  ItEtus,  tristisque  memento  senectse." 
§  Dr.  O'Connor  supposes  this  missal  to  have  been  brought  from  Luxeuil 
to"  Bobbio  by  some  followers  of  St.  Columbanus :—"  Ad  horum  vagantium 
(episcoporum)  usum,  codicem  de  quo  agimus  exaratum  fuisse  vel  inde  patet, 
quod  fuerit  Misale  portabile,  quod  allatum  fuerit  seculo  viimo,  ex  Hiberno- 
rum  monasterio  Luxoviense  in  Gallia,  ad  Hibernorum  monasterium  Bobiense 
iu  Alpibus  Cottiis— £p.  JSTunc. 


228  HISTORY  OF  Ireland. 

with  ecclesiastical,  but  with  classical  literature.  From  a  pas- 
sage  in  his  letter  to  Boniface,  it  appears  that  he  was  acquaint- 
ed both  with  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  languages  ;  and  when  it 
is  recollected  that  he  did  not  leave  Ireland  till  he  was  nearly 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  that  his  life  afterwards  was  one  of  con- 
stant activity  and  adventure,  the  conclusion  is  obvious,  that  all 
this  knowledge  of  elegant  literature  must  have  been  acquired 
in  the  schools  of  his  own  country.  Such  a  result  from  a  purely 
Irish  education,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  is,  it  must 
be  owned,  not  a  little  remarkable.*  Among  his  extant  works 
are  some  Latin  poems,  which,  though  not  admissible,  of  course, 
to  the  honours  of  comparison  with  any  of  the  writings  of  a 
classic  age,  shine  out  in  this  twilight  period  of  Latin  literature 
with  no  ordinary  distinction.!  Though  wanting  the  free  and 
fluent  versification  of  his  contemporary  Fortunatus,  he  displays 
more  energy  both  of  thought  and  style  ;  and,  in  the  becoming 
gravity  of  his  subjects,  is  distinguished  honourably  from  the 
episcopal  poet.]:  In  his  prose  writings,  the  style  of  Columba- 
nus  is  somewhat  stiff  and  inflated ;  more  especially  in  the  let- 
ters addressed  by  him  to  high  dignitaries  of  the  church,  where 
the  effort  to  elevate  and  give  force  to  his  diction  is  often  too 
visible  to  be  effective.  In  the  moral  instructions,  however, 
written  for  his  monks,  the  tone  both  of  style  and  thought  is,  for 
the  most  part,  easy  and  unpretending. 

*  La  Luraiere  que  S.  Columban  r6pandit  par  son  scavoir  et  sa  doctrine 
dans  tous  leslieux  ou  il  se  montra  I'a  fait  comparer  par'un  6crivain  du  meme 
sidcle  au  soleil  dans  sa  course  de  I'orient  a  I'occident.  li  continua,  apr§s  sa 
mort,  de  briller  dans  plusieurs  disciples  qu'il  avait  form6s  aux  lettres  et  a 
la  pi6t6." — Hist.  Litt.  de  la  Prance. 

The  same  learned  writers,  in  speaking  of  the  letters  of  St.  Columbanus 
still  extant,  say,—"  On  a  peu  de  monuments  des  vi.  et  vii.  siecles  ou  Ton 
trouve  plus  d'erudition  eccl6siastique  qu'il  y  en  a  dans  les  cinque  lettres  dont 
on  vient  de  rendre  compte." 

t  "  On  voit  effect! vement  par  la  lecture  de  son  poeme  a  Fedolius  en  par- 
ticulier,  qu'il  possedait  I'histoire  et  la  fable.  Cluoique  sa  versification  soil 
bien  6loignee  de  la  perfection  de  celle  des  anciens,  elle  ne  laisse  pas  nean- 
moins  d'avoir  son  merite  ;  et  Ton  peut  assurer  qu'il  y  a  peu  de  poetes  de  son 
temps  qui  aient  mieux  r6ussi  a  faire  des  vers."— Hist.  Litt,  ^c,  par  des  Reli- 
gieux  Benedictine. 

X  Those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  verses  of  this  bishop,  written, 
most  of  them,  "  inter  pocula,"— as  he  himself  avows,  in  his  Dedicatory 
Epistle  to  Pope  Gregory,— will  be  inclined  to  agree  that  it  was  not  difficult 
to  surpass  him  in  decorum. 


DISPUTES    ON    THE    PASCHAL    QUESTION.  229 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

DISPUTES    RESPECTING    THE    PASCHAL    COMPUTATION. —  LEARNED    IRISH 
MISSIONARIES   OF  THE  SEVENTH,   EIGHTH,   AND  NINTH  CENTURIES. 

On  the  question  respecting  the  time  of  keeping  Easter, 
which,  about  the  beginning'  of  the  seventh  century,  produced 
such  a  contest  between  the  British  and  Irish  clergy  on  one 
side,  and  the  church  of  Rome  and  her  new  missionaries  in  Bri- 
tain upon  the  other,  some  letters  were  addressed  by  Columba- 
nus  to  the  Gallican  bishops  and  the  pope  ;  in  which,  defending 
the  Paschai  system,  as  it  had  been  always  observed  by  his 
countrymen,  he  requests  "  to  be  allowed  to  follow  the  tradition 
of  his  elders,  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  contrary  to  faith."  Though 
upon  a  point  by  no  means  essential  as  regarded  either  faith  or 
discipline,  yet  so  eagerly  was  this  controversy  entered  into  by 
the  learned  Irish  of  that  day,  and  with  so  much  of  that  attach- 
ment to  old  laws  and  usages  which  has  at  all  periods  distin- 
guished them,  that  a  brief  account  of  the  origin  and  nature 
of  the  dispute  forms  a  necessary  part  of  the  history  of  those 
times. 

Very  early  in  the  annals  of  the  Christian  church,  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  with  respect  to  the  time  of  celebrating  Easter 
had  arisen  ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  great  Council  of  Nice,  a.  d. 
325,  had  prescribed  a  rule  by  which  the  day  of  this  festival 
was  to  be  fixed,  that,  throughout  the  Asiatic  and  Western 
churches,  a  uniformity  of  practice  in  the  time  of  celebrating 
it  was  observed.  Owing  to  the  difference,  however,  of  the 
cycles,  used  by  different  churches,  in  making  their  calcula- 
tions, it  was  soon  found,  that  to  preserve  this  desired  uniform- 
ity would  be  a  matter  of  much  difficulty.  By  the  decree  of 
the  Council  of  Nice  it  was  fixed,  that  the  Paschal  festival 
should  be  held  on  the  Sunday  next  after  the  fourteenth  day  of 
the  first  lunar  month.  In  determining  this  time,  however,  the 
church  of  Rome  and  the  church  of  Alexandria  differed  mate- 
rially; the  former  continuing  to  compute  by  the  old  Jewish 
cycle  of  eighty-four  years,  while  the  latter  substituted  the 
cycle  of  nineteen  years,  as  corrected  by  Eusebius ;  and  the 
consequence  was  a  difference,  sometimes  of  nearly  a  month, 
between  the  Alexandrian  and  Roman  calculations. 

When  St.  Patrick  came  on  his  mission  to  Ireland,  he  intro- 
duced the  same  method  of  Paschal  computation,  namely,  by 
the  cycle  of  eighty-four  years,  which  was  then  practised  at 

Vol.  I.  20 


230  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Rome,  and  which  the  apostle  taught  as  he  had  learned  it  in 
Gaul  from  Sulpicius  Severus,  by  whom  a  change  only  of  the 
mode  of  reckoning  the  days  of  the  moon  was  introduced  into 
it.  To  this  method  the  Irish  as  well  as  the  British  churches 
continued  to  adhere,  until  subsequently  to  the  arrival  of  Au- 
gustine upon  his  mission  to  Britain.  In  the  mean  tune,  the 
Romans,  having  in  vain  endeavoured,  by  conference  and  con- 
cession, to  adjust  the  differences  between  the  Alexandrian  cal- 
culations and  their  own,  thought  it  advisable,  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  to  try  a  new  method  ;  and  the  cycle  of  Dionysius  Exi- 
guus,  framed  about  525,  being  in  agreement  with  the  Alexan- 
drian method  and  rules,  was  adopted  by  them  about  the  middle 
of  the  sixth  century. 

From  the  little  communication  that  took  place  between  the 
churches  of  the  British  Isles  and  Rome — owing  to  the  troubled 
state  of  the  intervening  nations,  and  the  occupation  of  the 
coasts  of  Britain  by  the  Saxons — nothing  was  known  in  these 
countries  of  the  a(k:)ption  of  a  new  cycle  by  Rome;  and,  ac- 
cordingly, when  Augustine  and  his  brethren  arrived,  they 
found  both  the  British  and  the  Irish  in  perfect  ignorance  of 
the  reformation  which  had,  in  the  interim,  been  made,  and 
computing  their  Easter  by  tlie  old  cycle  of  eighty-four  years, 
as  formerly  practised  at  Rome.  In  one  particular  alone,  the 
change  introduced  by  Sulpicius,  did  the  Irish  church — to  which 
my  remarks  shall  hcncelbrward  be  confined — differ  from  the 
system  originally  pursued  by  the  Romans  ;  and  this  differr^nce, 
whicli  was,  in  reality,  rather  a  correction  of  the  old  Roman 
cycle  than  a  departure  from  it*,  consisted  in  tlieir  admission  of 
the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month,  as  fit  for  the  celebration  of 
Easter,  if  falling  on  a  Sunday.  The  fourteenth  day  had  long 
been  in  disrepute  throughout  Christendom,  both  as  being  the 
day  on  which  the  Jews  always  celebrate  their  Pasch,  and  as 
having  been  also  the  time  chosen  for  that  festival  by  the  Quar- 
todeciman  heretics.  But  there  was  this  material  difference 
between  their  practice  and  that  of  the  Irish,  that,  while  the 
Jews  and  Asiatic  heretics  celebrated  Easter  always  on  the 
fourteenth  day  of  the  moon,  let  it  fall  on  whatever  day  of  the 
week  it  might,  the  Irish  never  held  that  festival  on  the  four- 
teenth, unless  it  were  a  Sunday.      The  Roman  missionaries, 

*  Usher  thus  explains  this  correction  :— "  Q,uum  autem  Sulpitius  Severus 
bidui  ilhim  inter  Cycli  Alexandrini  et  Romani  neomenias  observavisset  dis- 
crepantiam,  vidissetque  Romanis  decimamnextam  Junam  numeratam  quae 
Alexandrinis,  coelo  etiam  demonstrante  (uti  ex  Cyrillo  retulimus)  erat  tan- 
tum  decimaquarta,  hunc  Romani  calculi  errorem  ita  emendandum  censuit,  ut 
non  jam  amplius  a  xvi.  ad  xxii.,  sed  a  xiv.  luna  ad  xx.  ox  antique  illo  anno- 
rum  84  laterculo  Dominica?  Paschales  oxcerperentur. 


SYNOD    AT    CAMPO-LENE.  231 

however,  chose  to  keep  this  essential  difference  out  of  sight ; 
and  unjustly  confounding  the  Easter  of  the  Irish  with  that  of 
the  Judaising  Quartodecimans,  involved  in  one  common  charge 
of  heresy  all  who  still  adhered  to  the  old  Roman  rule.* 

With  their  usual  fondness  for  ancient  usages,  the  Irish 
persisted  in  following  the  former  rule ;  and,  in  the  spirit  ^Xq  * 
with  which  Columbanus,  as  we  have  seen,  took  up  the 
question  against  the  Galilean  bishops,  he  faithfully  represented 
and  anticipated  the  feelings  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  The 
first  we  hear,  however,  of  the  dispute,  in  Ireland,  occurs  on 
the  occasion  of  a  letter  addressed,  in  609,  by  Laurence,  the 
successor  of  Augustine  and  his  brother  missionaries,  to  the 
Irish  bishops  or  abbots.  In  this  Exhortatory  Epistle,  as  Bede 
styles  it,  Laurence  expresses  the  disappointment  felt  by  him- 
self and  his  fellow  bishops  on  finding  that  the  Scots,  equally 
with  the  Britons,  had  departed  from  the  universal  custom  of 
the  church.  The  warmth  with  which  the  dispute  was,  at  this 
time,  entered  into  by  some  of  the  clergy  of  Ireland,  appears, 
from  a  circumstance  mentioned  in  this  letter,  of  an  Irish 
bishop,  Dagan,  who,  on  visiting  tlie  Roman  missionaries,  re- 
fused not  only  to  eat  in  company  with  them,  but  even  under 
the  same  roof 

From  this  period  the  question  seems  to  have  been 
left  open  for  more  than  twenty  years  :  some  few  among  £>o^  * 
the  clergy  of  Ireland  being  not  unwilling,  as  it  seems, 
to  adopt  the  new  Roman  discipline ;  while  others  thought  it 
sufficient  to  conform  so  far  to  Rome,  as  to  substitute  the  16th 
day  of  the  moon,  in  their  Paschal  Canon,  for  the  14th ;  and 
the  great  bulk  of  the  clergy  and  people  continued  attached  to 
their  old  traditional  mode.  At  length,  the  attention  of  the 
Roman  See  was,  in  the  year  630,  drawn  to  the  dispute ;  and 
a  letter  was  addressed  by  Honorius  to  the  nation  of  the  Scots, 
in  which  he  earnestly  exhorts  them  "  not  to  consider  their  own 
small  number,  placed  in  the  utmost  borders  of  the  earth,  as 
wiser  than  all  the  ancient  and  modern  Churches  of  Christ 
throughout  the  world  ;  nor  to  continue  to  celebrate  an  Easter 
contrary  to  the  Paschal  calculation  and  to  the  synodal  decrees 
of  all  the  bishops  upon  earth."  In  consequence  of  this  ad- 
monitory letter,  a  Synod  was  held  in  Campo-lene,  near  Old 

*  Thus,  in  the  letter  of  the  clergy  of  Rome,  cited  by  Bede  (1.  ii.  c.  19.),— 
"  Rc[teriinus  quosdam  provinciae  vestrae,  contra  orthodoxam  fidem  novam  ex 
veteri  haeresim  renovare  conantes,  Pascha  nostrum  in  quo  immolatus  est 
Christus  nebulosa  caligine  refutantes,  et  quartodecima  luna  cum  Hebrajis 
celebrare  nitentes."  Either  ignorantly  or  wilfully,  Dr.  Ledwich  has  fallen 
into  the  same  misrepresentation,  and,  unmindful  of  the  important  difference 
above  stated,  accuses  the  Irish  church,  at  tliis  period,  of  quartodecimanism. 


232  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Leighlin,  where  it  was  agreed,  after  some  strenuous  opposition 
from  St.  Fintan  Munnu,  of  Taghmon,  that  Easter  should,  m 
future,  be  celebrated  at  the  same  time  with  the  universal 
church.  This  decree,  however,  having  been  rendered  abortive 
by  some  subsequent  intrigue,  it  was  resolved  by  the  elders  of 
the  church,  that,  in  pursuance  of  an  ancient  canon,  by  which 
it  was  directed  that  every  important  ecclesiastical  affair  should 
be  referred  to  the  Head  of  Cities,  some  wise  and  humble  per- 
sons should  be,  on  the  present  occasion,  sent  to  Rome,  "as 
children  to  their  mother."  A  deputation  was  accordingly  dis- 
patched to  that  city,  who,  on  their  return  within  three  years 
after,  declared  that  they  had  seen,  in  the  see  of  St.  Peter, 
^gg '  the  Greek,  the  Hebrew,  the  Scythian,  and  the  Egyp- 
tian, all  celebrating  the  same  Easter  Day,  in  common 
with  the  whole  catholic  world,  and  differing  from  that  of  the 
Irish  by  an  entire  month.*  In  consequence  of  this  report  of 
the  deputies,  which  must  have  been  received  about  the  year 
633,  the  new  Roman  cycle  and  rules  were,  from  that  period, 
universally  adopted  throughout  the  southern  division  of  Ire- 
land. 

However  disproportioned  to  the  amount  of  discussion  which 
it  occasioned  was  the  real  importance  of  the  point  of  discipline 
now  at  issue,  the  effects  of  the  controversy,  in  as  far  as  it  pro- 
moted scientific  inquiry,  and  afforded  a  stimulant  to  the  wits 
of  the  disputants,  on  both  sides,  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
highly  favourable  to  the  advancement  of  the  public  mind. 
The  reference  to  the  usages  of  other  countries  to  which  it  ac- 
customed the  Irish  scholars  tended,  in  itself,  to  enlarge  the 
sphere  of  their  observation  and  proportionally  liberalize  their 
views ;  nor  was  it  possible  to  engage  in  the  discussion  of  a 
question  so  closely  connected  both  with  astronomy  and  arith- 
metic, without  some  proficiency  in  those  branches  of  know- 
ledge by  which  alone  it  could  be  properly  sifted  or  judged. 
Accordingly,  while,  on  one  side  of  the  dispute,  St.  Columba- 
nus  supported  eloquently  the  cause  of  his  countrymen,  abroad, 
adducing,  in  defence  of  their  practice,  no  less  learned  authority 
than  that  of  Anatolius,  bishop  of  Laodicea ;  at  home,  another 
ingenious  Irishman,  St.  Cummian,  still  more   versed   in  the 

*  "  Misimus  quos  novimus  sapientes  et  humiles  esse,  velut  natos  ad  ma- 
trem ;  et  prosperurn  iter  in  voluntate  Dei  habentes,  et  ad  Romam  urbein 
aliqui  ex  eis  venientes,  tertio  anno  ad  nos  usque  pervenerunt ;  et  sic  omnia 
viderunt  sicut  audierunt :  sed  et  valde  certiora,  utpote  visa  quam  audita  in- 
venerunt ;  et  in  uno  hospitio  cum  Graeco  et  Hebrseo,  Scytha  et  ^gyptiaco,  in 
Ecclesia  sancti  Petri  simul  in  Pasclia  (in  quo  mense  integro  disjuncti  sumus) 
fuerunt." — Epist.  Cummian.  Hibern.  ad  Segienum  Huensem,  Mhat.  de  Contro- 
vers.  Paschal.    See  Usher's  Vet.  Epist.  Hibernic.  Syllog. 


DISPUTES    RESPECTING   EASTER.  233 

studies  connected  with  this  subject,  produced,  on  the  Roman 
side  of  the  question,  such  an  array  of  learning  and  proofs  as 
would,  in  any  age,  have  entitled  his  performance  to  respect,  if 
not  admiration.  Enforcing  the  great  argument  derived  from 
the  unity  of  the  church*,  which  he  supports  by  the  authority 
of  all  the  most  ancient  fathers,  Greek  as  well  as  Latin,  he 
passes  in  review  the  various  cyclical  systems  that  had  pre- 
viously been  in  use,  pointing  out  their  construction  and  defects, 
and  showing  himself  acquainted  with  the  chronological  cha- 
racters, both  natural  and  artificial.  The  various  learning, 
indeed,  which  this  curious  tract  displays,  implies  such  a  facility 
and  range  of  access  to  books  as  proves  the  libraries  of  the  Irish 
students,  at  that  period,  to  have  been,  for  the  times  in  which 
they  lived,  extraordinarily  well  furnished. 

This  eminent  man,  St.  Cummian,  who  had  been  one  of  those 
most  active  and  instrumental  in  procuring  the  adoption  of  the 
Roman  system  by  the  Irish  of  the  south,  and  thereby  incurred 
the  serious  displeasure  of  the  Abbot  and  Monks  of  Hy,  under 
whose  jurisdiction,  as  a  monk  of  their  order,  he  was  placed, 
and  who  continued  longer  than  any  other  of  their  monastic 
brethren  to  adhere  to  the  old  Irish  method,  in  consequence  of 
its  having  been  observed  by  their  venerable  founder,  St.  Co- 
lumba.  In  defence  of  himself  and  those  who  agreed  with  him 
in  opinion,  St.  Cummian  wrote  the  famous  treatise  just  alluded 
to,  in  the  form  of  an  Epistle  addressed  to  Segienus,  abbot  of 
Hy ;  and  the  learning,  ability,  and  industry  with  which  he  has 
executed  his  task,  must,  even  by  those  most  inclined  to  sneer  at 
the  literature  of  tliat  period,  be  regarded  as  highly  remarkable. 

Though  the  southern  half  of  Ireland  had  now  received  the 
new  Roman  method,  the  question  continued  to  be  still  agitated 
in  the  northern  division,  where  a  great  portion  of  the  clergy 
persisted  in  the  old  Irish  rule ;  and  to  the  influence  exercised 
over  that  part  of  the  kingdom  by  the  successors  of  St.  Columba 
this  perseverance  is,  in  a  great  measure,  to  be  attributed.  It 
is  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  notwithstanding  the  intense 
eagerness  of  the  contest,  not  merely  in  Ireland,  but  wherever, 
in  Britain,  the  Irish  clergy  preached,  a  spirit  of  fairness  and 
tolerance  was  mutually  exercised  by  both  parties ;  nor  was  the 
schism  of  any  of  those  venerable  persons  who  continued  to 
oppose  themselves  to  the  Roman  system  allowed  to  interfere 
with  or  at  all  diminish  the  reverence  which  their  general 

*  Q,uid  autem  pravius  sentiri  potest  de  Ecclnsia  matre  quam  si  dicamus, 
Roma  errat,  Hierosolyina  errat,  Alexandria  errat,  Antiochia  errat,  totus 
muiidus  errat ;  soli  tantuia  Scoti  et  Britones  rectum  sapiunt.— Epist.  Cm7«- 
mian, 

20* 


234  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

character  for  sanctity  inspired.  Among  other  instances  of  this 
tolerant  spirit  may  be  mentioned  the  tribute  of  respect  paid 
publicly  to  St.  Fintin  Munnu,  by  his  zealous  adversary, 
Laserian,  in  the  course  of  their  contest  respecting  the  new 
Paschal  rule.  A  yet  more  historical  instance  is  presented  in 
the  case  of  Aidan,  the  great  apostle  of  the  Northumbrians, 
who,  though  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  Roman  Paschal  sys- 
tem, continued  to  be  honoured  no  less  in  life  and  after  death, 
by  even  those  persons  who  had  the  most  vehemently  differed 
with  him. 

The  connexion  of  this  venerable  Irishman,  St.  Aidan,  with 
the  Anglo-Saxon  king  Oswald,  illustrates  too  aptly  the  mutual 
relations  of  their  respective  countries,  at  this  period,  to  be 
passed  over  without  some  particular  notice.  During  the  reign 
of  his  uncle  Edwin,  the  young  Oswald  had  lived,  an  exile,  in 
Ireland,  and  having  been  instructed,  while  there,  in  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  resolved,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
to  disseminate  tlie  same  blessing  among  his  subjects.  With 
this  view  he  applied  to  the  Elders  of  the  Scots,  among  whom 
he  had  himself  been  taught,  desiring  that  they  would  furnish 
him  with  a  bishop,  through  whose  instruction  and  ministry  the 
nation  of  the  English  he  had  been  called  to  govern  might 
receive  the  Christian  faith.  In  compliance  with  the  royal 
desire,  a  monk  of  Hy,  named  Aidan,  was  sent ;  to  whom,  on 
his  arrival,  the  king  gave,  as  the  seat  of  his  see,  the  small 
island  of  Lindisfarne,  or,  as  it  has  been  since  called.  Holy  Isle. 
In  the  spiritual  labours  of  the  Saint's  mission  the  pious  Os- 
wald took  constantly  a  share ;  and  it  wels  often,  says  Bede,  a 
delightful  spectacle  to  witness,  that  when  the  bishop,  who 
knew  but  imperfectly  the  English  tongue,  preached  the  truths 
of  the  Gospel,  the  king  himself,  who  had  become  master  of  the 
Scotic  language  during  his  long  banishment  in  Ireland,  acted 
as  interpreter  of  the  word  of  God  to  his  commanders  and 
ministers.*  From  that  time,  continues  the  same  authority, 
numbers  of  Scotish,  or  Irish,  poured  daily  into  Britain,  preach- 
ing the  faith,  and  administering  baptism  througli  all  the  pro- 
vinces over  which  king  Oswald  reigned.  In  every  direction 
churches  were  erected,  to  which  the  people  flocked  with  joy 
to  hear  the  word.  Possessions  were  granted,  by  royal  bounty, 
for  the  endowment  of  monasteries  and  schools,  and  the  Eng- 

*  Ubi  pulcherrimo  saepe  spectaculo  contigit,  ut  evanselizaiite  antistite,  qui 
Anglorum  linguam  perfecte  non  noverat,  ipse  Rex  suis  ducibus  ac  ministris 
interpres  verbl  existeret  coelestis,  quia  nimirum  tam  longo  exilii  sui  tempore 
linguam  Scotorum  jam  plene  didicerat. — Lib.  iii.  cap.  3. 


SHORT    DURATION    OF    REIGNS.  235 

lish,  old  and  young,  were  instructed  by  their  Irish  masters  in 
all  religious  observances.* 

Having  now  allowed  so  long  a  period  of  Irish  history  to 
elapse,  without  any  reference  whatever  to  the  civil  transac- 
tions of  the  country,  it  may  naturally  be  expected  that  I  should 
for  a  while  digress  from  ecclesiastical  topics,  and,  leaving  the 
lives  of  ascetic  students  and  the  dull  controversies  of  the 
cloister,  seek  relief  from  the  tame  and  monotonous  level  of 
such  details  in  the  stirring  achievements  of  the  camp,  the 
feuds  of  rival  chieftains,  or  even  in  the  pomps  and  follies  of  a 
barbaric  court.  But  the  truth  is,  there  exist  in  the  Irish  annals 
no  materials  for  such  digression, — the  Church  forming,  through- 
out these  records,  not  merely,  as  in  the  history  of  most  other 
countries,  a  branch  or  episode  of  the  narrative,  but  its  sole 
object  and  theme.  In  so  far,  indeed,  as  a  quick  succession  of 
kings  may  be  thought  to  enliven  history,  there  occurs  no  want 
of  such  variety  in  the  annals  of  Ireland;  the  lists  of  her  kings, 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  the  Milesian  monarchy,  ex- 
hibiting but  too  strongly  that  unerring  mark  of  a  low  state  of 
civilization.  The  time  of  duration  allowed  by  Newton,  in  his 
Chronology,  to  the  reigns  of  monarchs  in  settled  and  civil- 
ized kingdoms  is,  at  a  medium,  as  much  as  eighteen  years  for 
each  reign.  In  small,  uncivilized  kingdoms,  however,  the 
medium  allowed  is  not  more  than  ten  or  eleven  years ;  and  at 
this  average  were  the  reigns  of  the  kings  of  Northumbria 
under  the  Saxon  heptarchy. f  What  then  must  be  our  estimate 
of  the  political  state  of  Ireland  at  this  period,  when  we  find 
that,  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Tuathal,  a.  d.  533,  to 

*  Exin'  ccepere  plures  per  dies  de  Scotorum  regione  venire  Britanniam  at- 
que  illis  Anglorum  provinciis,  quibiis  regnavit  rex  Osvald,  magna  devotione 
verbum  Dei  prsedicare.— fie<Zc,  lib.  iii.  cap.  3.  "  As  tiiese  preachers  (says  Dr. 
Laniga'O  came  over  fnmi  the  land  of  the  Scots  to  Britain,  it  is  plain  that  they 
came  from  Ireland  ;  for  the  land  of  the  British  Scots  was  itself  in  Britain  ; 
and  accordingly  Lloyd  states  (chap.  v.  §  5.),  that  these  auxiliaries  of  Aidan 
'  came  out  of  Ireland.'  Thus  also  Fleury  (lib.  xxxviii.  §  19.)  calls  them  '  Mis- 
sionaires  Irlandois.'  " — Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  xv.  note  103. 

It  was  hardly  worthy  of  Doctor  Lingard's  known  character  for  fairness,  to 
follow  the  example  so  far  of  Dempster,  and  other  such  writers,  as  to  call  our 
eminent  Irish  missionaries,  at  this  period,  by  the  ambiguous  name  of  Scotish 
monks,  without  at  the  same  time  informing  his  readers  that  these  distin- 
guished men  were  Scots  of  Ireland.  The  care  with  which  the  ecclesiastical 
historians  of  France  and  Italy  have  in  general  marked  this  distinction,  is 
creditable  alike  to  their  fairness  and  their  accuracy. 

t  To  judge  from  the  following  picture,  however,  their  state  was  little  better 
than  that  of  the  Irish:—"  During  the  last  century  (the  eighth),  Northumbria 
had  exhibited  successive  instances  of  treachery  and  murder  to  which  no  other 
country  perhaps  can  furnish  a  parallel.  Within  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years, 
fourteen  kings  had  assumed  the  sceptre,  and  yet  of  all  these  one  only,  if  one, 
died  in  the  peaceable  possession  of  royalty :  seven  had  been  slain,  six  had 
been  driven  from  the  throne  by  their  rebellious  subjects." 


236  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  time  of  the  great  plague,  664,  no  less  than  fifteen  monarchs 
had  successively  filled  the  Irish  throne,  making  the  average  of 
their  reigns,  during  that  period,  little  more  than  eight  years 
each.  With  the  names  of  such  of  these  princes  as  wielded  the 
sceptre  since  my  last  notice  of  the  succession,  w^hich  brought 
its  series  down  to  a.  d.  599,  it  is  altogether  unnecessary  to  en- 
cumber these  pages;  not  one  of  them  having  left  more  than  a 
mere  name  behind,  and,  in  general,  the  record  of  their  violent 
deaths  being  the  only  memorial  that  tells  of  their  ever  having 
lived. 

In  order  to  convey  to  the  reader  any  adequate  notion  of  the 
apostolical  labours  of  that  crowd  of  learned  missionaries  whom 
Ireland  sent  forth,  in  the  course  of  this  century,  to  all  parts  of 
Europe,  it  would  be  necessary  to  transport  him  to  the  scenes 
of  their  respective  missions ;  to  point  out  the  difficulties  they 
had  to  encounter,  and  the  admirable  patience  and  courage  with 
which  they  surmounted  them ;  to  sliow  how  inestimable  was 
the  service  they  rendered,  during  that  dark  period,  by  keeping 
the  dying  embers  of  learning  awake,  and  how  gratefully  their 
names  are  enshrined  in  the  records  of  foreign  lands,  though 
but  faintly,  if  at  all,  remembered  in  their  own.  It  was,  indeed, 
then,  as  it  has  been  ever  since,  the  peculiar  fate  of  Ireland, 
that  both  in  talent,  and  the  fame  that  honourably  rewards  it, 
her  sons  prospered  far  more  triumphantly  abroad  than  at  home ; 
for  while,  of  the  many  who  confined  their  labours  to  their  na- 
tive land,  but  few  have  left  those  remembrances  behind  which 
constitute  fame,  those  who  carried  the  light  of  their  talent  and 
zeal  to  other  lands,  not  only  founded  a  lasting  name  for  them- 
selves, but  made  their  country  also  a  partaker  of  their  renown, 
winning  for  her  that  noble  title  of  the  Island  of  the  Holy  and 
the  Learned,  which,  throughout  the  night  that  overhung  all 
the  rest  of  Europe,  she  so  long  and  proudly  wore.  Thus,  the 
labours  of  the  great  missionary,  St.  Columbanus,  were,  after 
his  death,  still  vigorously  carried  on,  both  in  France  and 
Italy,  by  those  disciples  who  had  accompanied  or  joined  him 
from  Ireland  ;  and  his  favourite  Gallus,  to  whom,  in  dying,  he 
bequeatlied  his  pastoral  staff,  became  the  founder  of  an  abbey 
in  Switzerland,  which  was  in  the  thirteenth  century  erected 
into  a  princedom,  while  the  territory  belonging  to  it  has, 
through  all  changes,  borne  the  name  of  St.  Gall.*     From  his 

*  In  speaking  of  the  learning  displayed  by  St.  Cummian  in  his  famous 
Letter  on  the  Paschal  question,  I  took  occasion  to  remark  on  the  proof  which 
it  affords  of  the  existence  of  libraries,  at  that  period,  in  Ireland,  and  by  no 
means  ill  or  scantily  furnished.  From  a  circumstance  mentioned  by  the 
ecclesiastical  historians  of  an  Irish  bishop,  named  Mark,  who  visited  the 


IRISH    MISSIONARIES.  237 

great  assiduity  in  promulgating  the  Gospel,  and  training  up 
disciples  capable  of  succeeding  him  in  the  task,  this  pious 
Irishman  has  been  called,  by  a  foreign  martyrologist,  the  Apos- 
tle of  the  Allemanian  nation.  Another  disciple  and  country- 
man of  St.  Columbanus,  named  Deicola,  or  in  Irish  Dichuill, 
enjoyed,  like  his  master,  the  patronage  and  friendship  of  the 
monarch  Clotaire  II.,  who  endowed  the  monastic  establishment 
formed  by  him  at  Luthra,  with  considerable  grants  of  land. 

In  various  other  parts  of  France,  similar  memorials  of  Irish 
sanctity  may  be  traced.*    At  the  celebrated  monastery  of  Cen- 
tula,  in  Ponthied,  was  seen  a  tomb,  engraved  with  golden  let- 
ters, telling  that  there  lay  the  remains  of  the  venerable  priest, 
Caidoc,  "  to  whom  Ireland  gave  birth,  and  the  Gallic 
land  a  grave."!     The  site  of  the  hermitage  of  St.     ^V/^* 
Fiacre,  another  Irish  Saint,  was  deemed  so  consecrated 
a  spot,  that  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage  thither  was,  to  a  late  period, 
a  frequent  practice  among  the  devout ;  and  we  are  told  of  the 
pious  Anne  of  Austria,  that  when,  in  1641,  she  visited  the 
shrine  of  this  saint,  so  great  was  the  humility  of  her  devotion, 
that  she  went  the  whole  of  the  way,  from  Monceau  to  the 
town  of  Fiacre,  on  foot.|     Among  the  number  of  holy  and 

monastery  of  St.  Gall,  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  it  would  ap- 
pear that  the  Irish  were,  at  that  time,  even  able  to  contribute  to  the  libra- 
ries of  their  fellow  countrymen  on  the  Continent.  The  fact  is  thus  stated 
by  the  Benedictines :— II  s'y  vient  alors  habituer  un  eveque  Hibernois  nomme 
Marc,  dont  la  retraite  fut  avantageuse  aux  etudes,  tant  par  les  livres  dont  il 
augmenta  la  bibliotheque  que  par  les  personnes  qu'il  avoit  a  sa  suite.  Entre 
ceux-ci  6toit  un  neveu,  u  qui  le  nom  barbare  de  Moengal  fut  chang6  en  celui 
de  Marcel,  et  un  Eusebe,  autre  homme  de  lettres,  et  Hibernois,  conunes  lea 
pr6c6dens."  The  learned  writers  then  add  the  following  interesting  remark 
respecting  the  Irish  of  that  period  in  general :— "  On  a  deja  remarqu6  ailleurs 
que  les  gens  de  ce  pays,  presqu'a  I'extremit^  du  monde,  avoient  mieux  con- 
SHrv6  la  litt^rature,  parcequ'ils  6toient  moins  exposes  aux  revolutions  que 
les  autres  parties  de  I'Europe." 

*  Ce  commerce  de  litt6rature  entres  les  Gaules  et  les  lies  Britanniques,  en 
genre  de  s'eulrecommuniquer  leurs  connoisances  sur  les  lettres  et  la  doc- 
trine, et  de  se  preter  de  grands  hommes  pour  les  repandre,  devint  mutuel 
depuis  que  S.  Gildas,  S.  Colomban,  et  plusieurs  autres  Hibernois,  presque 
tous  gens  de  lettres,  se  retirgrent  dans  nos  provinces.— ^is«.  Litter,  de  la 
France,  tom.  iv. 

t  Mole  sub  hac  tegitur  Caidocus  jure  sacerdos, 

Scotia  quern  genuit,Gallica  terra  tegit. 

The  burial-place  of  this  saint,  who  died  at  Centula,  towards  the  middle 
of  the  seventh  century,  was  repaired  bj  Angilbert,  abbot  of  that  monastery, 
in  the  reign  of  Charlemagne,  when  the  epitaph  from  which  the  above  couplet 
is  cited  was  inscribed  upon  the  tomb. 

X  L'ermitage  de  Saint  Fiacre  est  devenu  un  bourg  de  la  Brie,  fameux  par 
les  pelerinages  que  Ton  y  faisoit ;  i'eglise  ou  chapelle  6toit  desservie  par  les 
B6n6dictins ;  les  femmes  n'entroient  point  dans  le  sanctuaire,  et  Ton  re- 
marque  que  la  Reine  Anne  d'Autriche,  y  venant  en  p6I6rinage  en  1641,  se 
conforma  a  cet  usage,  et  qu'elle  fit  meme  a  pied  le  chemin  depuis  Monceau 
jusqu'a  Saint-Fiacre."— /fist,  dc  Meaux. 


238  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

eminent  Irishmen  who  thus  extended  their  labours  to  France, 
must  not  be  forgotten  St.  Fursa*,  who,  after  preaching  among 
the  East  Angles,  and  converting  many  from  Paganism,  passed 
over  into  France ;  and,  building  a  monastery  at  Lagny,  near 
the  river  Marne,  remained  there,  spreading  around  him  the 
blessings  of  religious  instruction,  till  his  death. 

In  like  manner,  through  most  of  the  other  countries  of  Eu- 
rope, we  hear  of  the  progress  of  some  of  these  adventurous 
spirits,  and  track  the  course  of  their  fertilizing  footsteps  through 
the  wide  waste  of  ignorance  and  paganism  which  then  prevail- 
ed.! In  Brabant,  the  brothers  of  St.  Furso,  Ultan  and  Foillan, 
founded  an  establishment  which  was  long  called  the  Monastery 
of  the  Irish ;  and  the  elegant  scholar,  St.  Livin|,  whom,  by  his 
own  verses,  we  trace  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Bavo§,  in  Ghent,  pro- 
ceeded from  thence,  on  a  spiritual  mission,  through  Flanders 
and  Brabant,  prepared  at  every  step  for  that  crown  of  martyr- 
dom, which  at  length,  from  the  hands  of  Pagans,  he  sufFered.il 

It  is  said  in  another  work,  relating  to  this  saint,  "  On  a  pretendu  que  le 
nom  de  Fiacres  avoit  ete  donne  aux  carosses  de  place,  parcequ'ils  furent 
d'abord  destines  a  voiturer  jusqu'a  St.  Fiacre  (en  Brie)  les  Parisians  qui  y 
allerent  en  piilerinage." 

*  This  saint  was  of  royal  descent :— "  Erat  autem  vir  ille  de  nobilissimo 
genere  Scotorum."— Serfe",  1.  iii.  c.  19.  In  the  same  chapter  will  be  found  an 
account  of  those  curious  visions  or  revelations  of  St.  Fursa,  which  are  sup- 
posed by  the  Benedictines  to  have  been  intended  to  shadow  forth  the  po- 
litical and  moral  corruption  of  the  higher  orders  in  Ireland  :— "  On  s'apper- 
coit  sans  peine  qu'elles  tendent  a  rcprimer  les  desordres  qui  r6E;noient  alors 
parmi  les  Princes,  les  Eveques,  et  les  autres  ecclesiastiques  d'Hibernie,  oil  le 
saint  les  avoit  cues.  Elles  taxent  principalemont  leur  avarice,  leur  oisivete, 
le  peu  de  soin  qu'ils  prenoient  de  s'instruire  et  d'instruire  les  autres." 

t  "  In  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  centuries  (says  Macpherson),  religion 
and  learning  flourished  in  Ireland  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  was  commonly 
styled  the  mother  country  of  saints,  and  reputed  the  kingdom  of  arts  and 
sciences.  The  Saxons  and  Angles  sent  thither  many  of  their  princes  and 
princesses  to  have  the  benefit  of  a  pious  and  learned  education.  It  ought, 
likewise,  to  be  acknowledged,  that  some  of  the  most  eminent  teachers  of 
North  Britain  received  tlieir  instruction  at  the  Irish  seminaries  of  literature 
and  religion." 

I  "  Voici  encore  im  (diviiin,'  say  the  nciu'dictiiics,  "  qu(!  la  France  est  en 
droit  de  partager  avec  riiibernie,  qu'\  lui  donna  Jiaissance." 

§  The  epitaph  which  this  saint  wrote  upon  St.  Bavo,  and  the  epistle  ad- 
dressed by  him  to  his  friend  Florbert,  in  sending  him  the  epitaph,  may  both 
be  found  in  Usher's  Vet.  Epist.  Iliberniarum  Sylloge.  Of  these  two  poems 
Dr.  Lanigan  remarks,  that  they  "  are  very  neat  compositions,  and  do  great 
honour  to  the  classical  taste  of  the  Irish  schools  of  that  period,  while  bar- 
barism prevailed  in  the  greatest  part  of  Western  Europe."— Chap.  vi.  §  12. 

Ij  In  his  epistle  to  Florbert,  the  Saint  thus  anticipates  the  doom  of  martyr- 
dom  that  awaited  him  :— 

Impia  Barbarico  gens  exagitata  tumultu 

Hie  Brabanta  furit,  meque  cruenta  petit 
Q,uid  tibi  peccavi,  qui  pacis  nuntia  porto  ? 

Pax  est  quod  porto  ;  cur  mihi  bella  moves  ? 
Bed  qua  tu  spiras  feritas  sors  lajta  triumphi, 
Atque  dabit  palmani  gloria  niartyrii. 


THE    PLAGUE.  239 

With  the  same  enterprising  spirit  we  find  St.  Fridolin,  sur- 
named  the  Traveller, — a  native  it  is  supposed,  of  Connaught, — 
exploring  the  Rhine  for  some  uninhabited  island,  and  at  length 
fixing  himself  upon  Seckingen,  where  he  founded  a  church, 
and  a  religious  house  for  females,  which  he  lived  to  see  prosper 
under  his  own  eyes.  Next  to  the  generous  self-devotion  of 
these  holy  adventurers,  thus  traversing  alone  the  land  of  the 
infidel  and  the  stranger,  the  feeling  of  gratitude  with  which 
after-ages  have  clung  to  their  names,  forms  one  of  the  most 
pleasing  topics  of  reflection  which  liistory  affords ;  and  few,  if 
any,  of  our  Irish  missionaries  left  behind  them  more  grateful 
recollections  than,  for  centuries,  consecrated  every  step  of  the 
course  of  Fridolin  the  Traveller,  through  Lorraine,  Alsace, 
Germany,  and  Switzerland. 

In  the  month  of  May,  664,  that  solar  eclipse  took  place,  the 
accurate  record  of  which  by  the  Irish  chroniclers,  I  have  al- 
ready had  occasion  to  notice.  This  phenomenon,  together  with 
the  singular  aspect  of  the  sky,  which,  during  the  whole  sum- 
mer, as  we  are  told,  seemed  to  be  on  fire,  was  regarded  gener- 
ally, at  the  time,  as  foretokening  some  fatal  calamity,  and  the 
frightful  pestilence  which  immediately  after  broke  out,  both  in 
England  and  Ireland,  seemed  but  too  fully  to  justify  the  super- 
stitious fear.  This  Yellow  Plague,  as  the  dreadfiil  malady  was 
called,  having  made  its  appearance  first  on  the  Southern  coasts 
of  Britain,  spread  from  thence  to  Northumbria,  and,  about  the 
beginning  of  August,  reached  Ireland,  where,  in  the  course  of 
the  three  years  during  wliich  its  ravages  lasted,  it  is  computed  to 
have  swept  oft'  two-thirds  of  tlie  inhabitants.  Among 
its  earliest  victims  were  the  two  royal  brothers,  Dier-  r.^.' 
mit  and  Blathmac,  who  held  jointly  at  this  period  the        '  ' 

The  following  verses  fioin  tliis  epistle,  in  reference  to  llie  task  which  Ins 
friend  Florbert  liad  imposed  upon  hiin,  may  not,  perliaps,  be  thought  un- 
worthy of  citation  : 

Et  pins  ille  pater  cum  donis  mollia  verba 

Mittit,  et  ad  stadium  soUicitat  precibus. 
Ac  titulo  magnum  jubet  insignire  Bavonem , 

Atq'  loves  elegos  esse  decus  tumulo. 
Nee  reputat,  fisso  cum  stridet  fistula  ligno, 

Quod  soleat  raucum  reddere  quassa  sonum. 
Exigui  rivi  pauper  quam  vena  ministrat 

Lasso  vix  tenues  unda  ministra  opem. 
Sic  ego  qui  quondam  studio  florente  videbar 

Esse  poeta,  modo  curro  pedester  equo. 
Et  qui  Castalio  dicebar  fonte  madentem 

DictsEo  versu  posse  movere  Lyram, 
Carmine  nunc  lacero  dictant  mihi  verba  Camoena; ; 

Mensq'ue  dolens  lastis  apta  nee  est  modulis. 
Non  sum  qui  fueram  festivo  carmine  laetus  : 

Qualiter  esse  queam,  tela  cruonta  videns? 


240  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Irish  throne  ;  and  Bede  mentions  also,  in  the  number  of  suffer- 
ers, some  natives  of  England,  both  noble  and  of  lower  rank, 
who  had  retired  to  Ireland,  as  he  expresses  it,  "  to  pursue  a 
course  of  sacred  studies,  and  lead  a  stricter  life."  It  is  in  men- 
tioning this  interesting  fact,  that  the  historian  adds,  so  honour- 
ably to  the  Irish,  that  they  most  cheerfully  received  all  these 
strangers,  and  supplied  them  gratuitously  with  food,  with  books, 
and  instruction.* 

While  thus  from  England  such  numbers  crowded  to  these 
shores,  and  either  attached  themselves  to  a  monastic  life,  or 
visited  the  cells  of  the  different  monasteries  in  pursuit  of 
general  knowledge,  Irish  scholars  were,  with  a  similar  view, 
invited  into  Britain.  The  Island  of  Hy,  which  was  inhabited 
by  Irish  monks,  furnished  teachers  to  all  the  more  northern 
regions  ;  and  the  appointment  of  three  natives  of  Ireland,  in 
succession,  to  the  new  see  of  Lindisfarne,  proves  how  grateful 
a  sense  of  the  services  of  that  nation  the  Northumbrian  princes 
of  this  period  entertained.  At  the  time  w^e  are  speaking  of, 
the  bishop  of  this  see  was  Colman,  a  monk  of  the  Columbian 
order,  who  had  been  sent  from  Ireland  for  the  purpose  of  filling 
that  high  dignity.  Like  all  the  rest  of  the  clergy  of  his  order, 
he  adhered  to  the  Irish  mode  of  celebrating  Easter,  and  the 
dispute  respecting  that  point  received  a  new  recruitment  oi 
force  from  his  accession,  as  well  as  from  the  scruples  of  the 
intelligent  Alchfrid,  son  of  king  Oswin,  who,  while  his  father, 
a  convert  and  pupil  of  the  Irish,  "  saw  nothing  better,"  says 
Bede,  "  than  what  they  taught,"  was  inclined  to  prefer  to  their 
traditions  the  canonical  practice  now  introduced  from  Rome.f 
In  consequence  of  the  discussions  to  which  this  difference  gave 
rise,  a  memorable  conference  was  held  on  the  subject,  at  Whit- 
by ;  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  two  kings,  Oswin  and 
Alchfrid,  the  arguments  of  each  party  were  temperately  and 
learnedly  brought  forward  ;  the  bishop  Colman,  with  his  Irish 
clergy,  speaking  in  defence  of  the  old  observances  of  their 
country,  while  Wilfrid,  a  learned  priest,  who  had  been  recently 
to  Rome,  undertook  to  prove  the  truth  and  universality  of  the 
Roman  method.     The  scene  of  the  controversy  was  in  a  mo- 

*  On  this,  Ledwich  remarks :—"  So  zealous  and  disinterested  a  love  of 
learning  is  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  the  world." 

t  An  edifying  instance  of  the  tolerance  of  that  period  is  afforded  in  the 
following  fact,  mentioned  by  Bede:— The  Queen  of  Eanfled,  who  had  lived 
in  Kent,  and  who  had  with  her  a  Kentish  priest,  named  Romanus,  followed 
the  Roman  Easter,  while  the  King  Oswin  celebrated  the  Irish  Easter;  and 
it  sometimes  happened,  says  Bede,  that  while  the  king,  bishop,  &c.  were 
enjoying  the  Paschal  festivity,  the  queen  and  her  followers  were  still  fasting 
the  Lent. 


DISPUTE    RESPECTING    EASTER.  241 

jiasteiy,  or  nunnery,  over  which  Hilda,  a  distinguished  abbess, 
presided, — herself  and  all  her  community  being  favourers,  we 
are  told,  of  the  Irish  system.  The  debate  was  carried  on  in 
Irish  and  Anglo-Saxon,  the  venerable  Cead,  an  English  bishop, 
acting  as  interpreter  between  the  parties ;  and  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding but  wanted  a  worthier  or  more  important  subject  of 
discussion  to  render  it,  in  no  ordinary  degree,  striking  and  in- 
teresting.* 

After  speeches  and  replies  on  both  sides,  of  which  Bede  has 
preserved  the  substance,  the  king  and  the  assembly  at  large 
agreed  to  give  their  decision  in  favour  of  Wilfrid ;  and  Col- 
man,  silenced  but  not  convinced,  resolving  still  to  adhere  to 
the  tradition  of  his  fathers,  resigned  the  see  of  Lindisfarne, 
and  returned  to  his  home  in  Ireland,  taking  along  with  him  all 
the  Irish  monks,  and  about  thirty  of  the  English,  belonging  to 
that  establishment.! 

The  great  mistake  which  pervaded  the  arguments  of  the 
Roman  party,  upon  tliis  question,  lay  in  their  assumption — 
whether  wilfully  or  from  ignorance — that  the  method  of  com- 
putation which  they  had  introduced  was  the  same  that  Rome 
had  practised  from  the  very  commencement  of  her  church ; 
whereas,  it  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  that  the 
Romans  themselves  were  induced,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and 
unity,  to  exchange  their  old  cycle  of  eighty-four  years  for  a 
new  Paschal  system.  By  another  gross  error  of  the  same 
party,  which  seems  also  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  having  been 
wilful,  the  Easter  of  the  Irish  w^as  confounded  with  the  Quar- 
todeciman  Pasch,  though  between  the  two  observances,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  there  was  an  essential  diflference.}  But  the 

*  Among  other  persons  present  at  the  discussion,  was  Agilbert,  a  native 
of  France,  who,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the  Scriptures,  as  Bede  tells  us, 
had  passed  a  considerable  time  in  Ireland.  "  Venit  in  provinciam  de  Hi- 
bernia  pontifex  quidam,  nomine  Agilberctus,  natione  quidem  Gallus,  sed 
tunc  legendarum  gratia  Scripturarum  in  Hibernia  non  parvo  tempore  de- 
moratus."— Lib.  iii.  c.  7. 

t  To  the  monastery  built  by  Colman  for  his  English  followers,  at  Mayo, 
(Bede,  l.iv.  c.  4.)  a  number  of  other  monks  of  that  nation  attached  them- 
selves; and.  in  the  time  of  Adamnan,  towards  the  close  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, there  were  about  one  hundred  Saxon  or  English  saints  at  that  place, 
which,  from  thence,  was  called  by  tlie  name  of  Maigh-eona-Sasson,  or  Mayo 
of  the  English.  For  this  fact.  Usher  refers  to  the  book  of  Ballimote  : — 
"  Quo  in  loco,  uti  BediE  selate  grande  Anglorum  fuisse  monasterium  audi 
vimus,  ita  etiam  S.  Cormaci,  et  Adamnani  tempore  centum  Saxonicortim 
Sanctorum  fuisse  habitaculum,  libri  Ballimotensis  collector  confirmat." — 
Eccles.  Primord. 

I  Inheriting  fully  the  same  perverse  feeling  against  the  Irish,  Dr.  Ledwich 
has,  in  the  same  manner,  misrepresented  them  on  this  subject ;  endeavouring 
to  make  out  that  St.  Columba  and  his  successors  were  all  Quartodecimans. 
See  an  able  refutation  of  his  views  on  this  point  bv  Dr.  Lanigan,  chap.  xii. 
note  236. 

Vol.  I.  21 


242  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

fundamental  error  of  both  parties  in  the  contest  was,  the  im- 
portance attached  unduly  by  each  of  them  to  a  point  of  mere 
astronomical  calculation,  unconnected  with  either  faith  or  mo- 
rals ;  and  while  the  Irish  were,  no  doubt,  censurable  for  per- 
sisting with  so  much  obstinacy  in  a  practice  which,  besides 
being  indifferent  in  itself,  was  at  variance  with  the  general 
usage  of  Christendom,  their  opponents  were  no  less  to  be 
blamed  for  their  want  of  charity  and  good  sense  in  raising,  on 
so  slight  a  point  of  difference  and  discipline,  the  cry  of  heresy 
and  schism. 

A  dispute  of  a  still  more  trifling  nature,  and  bordering  close- 
ly, it  must  be  owned,  on  the  ridiculous,  was,  by  the  English 
followers  of  the  Roman  missionaries,  mixed  up,  throughout, 
with  the  Paschal  question,  and,  in  a  subordinate  degree,  made 
to  share  its  fortunes.  This  dispute  related  to  the  tonsure,  or 
mode  of  shaving  the  head,  practised  respectively  by  the  Roman 
and  Irish  clergy :  the  former  of  whom  shaved  or  clipped  the 
crown  of  the  head,  leaving  the  hair  to  grow  in  a  circle  all 
round  it ;  while  the  Irish,  allowing  the  hair  to  cover  the  back 
of  the  head,  shaved  or  clipped  it  away,  in  the  form  of  a  cres- 
cent, from  the  front.  Both  parties,  with  equal  confidence  and, 
it  may  be  added,  ignorance,  appealed  to  antiquity  in  support  of 
their  respective  tonsures ;  while,  on  the  part  of  the  Irish,  the 
real  motive  for  clinging  so  fondly  to  their  old  custom  was,  that 
it  had  been  introduced  among  them,  with  all  their  other  eccle- 
siastical rules  and  usages,  by  the  national  apostle,  St.  Patrick. 
According  as  their  Paschal  rule,  however,  gave  way,  this  form 
of  the  tonsure  followed  its  fate ;  and  in  a  Canon,  the  date  of 
which  is  supposed  to  be  about  the  seventh  or  eighth  century, 
we  find  an  order  for  the  observance  of  the  Roman  tonsure. 

However  constantly  the  kings  of  Ireland,  at  this  period, 

were,  as  her  annals  record,  in  conflict  with  each  other,  that 

perfect  security  from  foreign  invasion  which  she  had  througji 

so  long  a  course  of  ages  enjoyed,  still  continued  to  be  inviolate. 

A  slight  interruption,  however,  of  this  course  of  good  fortune, 

— as  if  to  break  the  spell  hitherto  guarding  her, — oc- 

lJ;^.*  curred  towards  the  close  of  this  century,  when,  not- 

'   withstanding  the  habitual  relations  of  amity  between 

the  Northumbrians  and  the  Irish,  an  expedition,  commanded 

by  the  general  of  Egfrid,  king  of  Northumberland,  landed  on 

the  eastern  coast  of  Ireland,  and  ravaging  the  whole  of  the 

territory,  at  that  time  called  Bregia,  spared,  as  the  annals  tell 

us,  neither  people  nor  clergy,  and  carried  off  with  them  a 

number  of  captives,  as  well  as  considerable  plunder.     This 

sudden  and,  apparently,  wanton  aggression  is  supposed  to  have 


PIRATICAL  ATTACK  OF  KING  EGFRID.       243 

been  owing  to  the  offence  taken  by  Egfrid  at  the  protection 
afforded  by  the  Irish  to  his  brother,  Alfrid,  who  was  then  an 
exile  in  their  country.*  Availing  himself  of  the  leisure  which 
his  period  of  banishment  afforded,  this  intelligent  prince  had 
become  a  proficient  in  all  the  studies  of  his  age  :  nor  was  he 
the  only  royal  foreigner  who,  in  those  times,  found  a  shelter  in 
Ireland,  as  Dagobert,  the  son  of  the  king  of  Austrasia,  had,  not 
long  before,  been  educated  there  in  a  monastery ;  and,  after  a 
seclusion  of  many  years,  being  recalled  from  thence  to  his  own 
country,  became  sovereign  of  all  Austrasia,  under  the  title  of 
Dagobert  11. 

The  very  year  after  his  piratical  attack  on  the  Irish  coast, 
king  Egfrid,  by  a  just  judgment  upon  him,  as  Bede  appears  to 
think,  for  this  wanton  aggression  on  "  a  harmless  nation,  which 
Iiad  been  always  most  friendly  to  the  Englishf ,"  was,  in  a  rash 
invasion  of  the  Pictish  territory,  defeated  and  slain ;  and  his 
brother  Alfrid,  though  illegitimate,  succeeded  to  the  throne. J: 
With  the  view  of  seeking  restitution,  both  of  the  property  and 
the  captives,  which  had  been  carried  away  in  the  marauding 
expedition  under  Egfrid,  Adamnan,  the  abbot  of  Hy,  was  sent 
to  the  court  of  the  new  king,  whose  warm  attachment  and 
gratitude  to  Ireland,  as  well  as  his  personal  friendship  for  her 
legate,  could  not  fail  to  insure  perfect  success  to  the  mission ; 
and  accordingly  we  find,  in  the  annals  of  the  year  684,  a  record 
of  the  return  of  Adamnan,  bringing  back  with  him  from  Nor- 
thumbria  sixty  captives. ^  This  able  and  learned  man  was  de- 
scended from  the  same  royal  line  with  his  predecessor,  St. 
Columba,  namely,  the  race  of  the  northern  Nials,  which,  from 
the  first  foundation  of  Hy,  furnished,  for  more  than  two  centu- 
ries, almost  all  its  abbots.  So  constant  did  the  Irish  remain  to 
one  line  of  descent,  as  well  in  their  abbots  as  their  kings. 

It  was  during  this  or  a  subsequent  visit  to  his  royal  friend 
that  Adamnan,  observing  the  practice  of  the  English  churches, 
was  induced  to  adopt  the  Roman  Paschal  system ;  as  well  as 

*  On  account  of  his  illegitimacy,  Alfrid  had  been  set  aside  by  some  of  the 
nobles,  and  his  younger  brother  Egfrid  exalted  to  the  throne.  "  Is  (Alfridus) 
quia  nothus,utdixi,  erat  factione  optimatum,  quamvis  senior,  regno  indignus 
et  ffistimatus,  in  flibcrniam,  seu  vi,  sen  indignatione  secesserat.  Ita  ab  odio 
germani  tutus,  et  magno  otio  literis  imbutus,  omni  philosophia  animum  com- 
posneraV—Ouliclm.  Malmsbur.  De  Gest.  Reg.  lib.  i.  c.  3. 

t  Vastavit  misere  gentem  innoxiam  et  nationi  Anglorum  semper  amicis- 
Eimam. — Lib.  iv.  c.  26. 

X  He  ably  retrieved,  too,  as  Bede  informs  us,  the  ruined  state  of  that  king- 
dom. How  much  this  prince  had  profited  by  his  studies  in  Ireland,  appears 
from  what  the  same  historian  states  of  him,  that  "  he  was  most  learned  in 
the  Scriptures"—"  vir  in  scripturis  doctissimus."— Lib.  iv.  c.  2G. 

§  Annal.  IV.  Mag. 


244  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

to  employ,  on  his  return  home,  all  the  influence  he  possessed, 
with  his  countrymen,  in  persuading  them  to  follow  his  exam- 
ple. In  those  parts  of  Ireland  which  were  exempt  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  Hy,  his  success  appears  to  have  been  consider- 
able ;  but  neither  in  that  monastery,  nor  any  of  those  depend- 
ent upon  it,  could  their  eminent  abbot  succeed  in  winning  over 
converts.  Among  the  writings  left  by  Adamnan,  tlie  most 
generally  known  is  his  Life  of  St.  Columba, — a  work,  of  which 
a  fastidious  Scotch  critic  has  pronounced,  that  "  it  is  the  most 
complete  piece  of  such  biography  that  all  Europe  can  boast  of, 
not  only  at  so  early  a  period,  but  even  through  the  whole  Mid- 
dle Ages."* 

In  the  annals  of  the  reign  of  the  monarch  Finnachtha,  which 
lasted  from  the  year  674  to  693,  we  meet  with  one  of  the  few 
records  of  civil  transactions,  which  the  monkish  chroniclers 
have  deigned  to  transmit ;  nor  even  in  this  instance,  perhaps, 
should  we  have  been  furnished  with  any  knowledge  of  the  fact, 
had  it  not  been  so  closely  connected  with  the  ascendency  and 
glory  of  the  church.  The  Boarian  tribute,  that  iniquitous  tax 
upon  the  people  of  Leinster,  which  had  now,  through  forty 
successive  reigns,  been  one  of  the  most  fertile  of  all  the  many 
sources  of  national  strife,  was  at  length,  at  the  urgent  request 
of  St.  Moling,  archbishop  of  Ferns,  remitted  by  the  pious  king 
Finnachtha,  for  himself  and  his  successors,  for  ever. 

Towards  the  close  of  this  century,  we  again  lind  the  page 
of  Irish  history  illuminated  by  a  rich  store  of  saintly  ornaments. 
It  is  highly  probable  that,  on  the  return  of  prince  Dagobert  to 
Austrasia,  he  had  been  accompanied  or  followed  thither  from 
Ireland  by  some  of  those  eminent  scholars  who  had,  during 
his  stay  there,  presided  over  his  studies ;  as  we  find  him,  on 
his  subsequent  accession  to  the  throne,  extending  his  notice 
and  patronage  to  two  distinguished  natives  of  Ireland,  St.  Ar- 
bogastf  and  St.  Florentius,  the  former  of  whom  having  resid- 
ed, for  some  time,  in  retirement  at  Alsace,  was,  by  Dagobert, 
when  he  became  king,  appointed  bishop  of  Strasburg ;  and,  on 
his  death,  a  few  years  after,  his  friend  and  countryman,  Flo- 
rentius, became  his  successor.  The  tombs  of  two  brothers, 
Erard|  and  Albert,  both  distinguished  Irish  saints  of  this  pe- 
riod, were  long  shown  at  Ratisbon ;  and  St.  Wiro,  who  is  said 

*  Pinkerton,  Enquiry,  &c. 

t  Arbogastus,  origine  Scotus.—Mabillon. 

J  There  has  been  some  doubt  as  to  the  claims  of  Ireland  to  this  saint ;  but 
Bollandus,  after  much  consideration  on  the  subject,  declares  it  to  be  the  most 
probable  opinion  that  he  was  an  Irishman.  See  the  point  discussed  by  Dr. 
Lanigan,  chap,  xviii.  note  95. 


ST.  KILIAN.  245 

to  have  been  a  native  of  the  county  of  Clare*,  rose  to  such 
eminence  by  his  sanctity,  that  Pepin  of  Heristal,  the  mighty 
ruler  and  father  of  kings,  selected  him  for  his  spiritual  director, 
and  was  accustomed,  we  are  told,  to  confess  to  him  barefoot. 

But  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  Irish  missionaries  of 
this  period,  was  the  great  apostle  of  Franconia,  St.  Kilian, 
who,  to  his  other  triumphs  and  glories  in  the  cause  of  religion, 
added  finally  that  of  martyrdom.  His  illustrious  convert,  the 
Duke  of  Wurtzburg,  whose  conversion  was  followed  by  that 
of  numbers  of  his  subjects,  having  contracted  a  marriage  with 
the  wife  of  his  brother,  St.  Kilian  pointed  out  to  him  the  un- 
lawfulness of  such  a  connexion,  and  required,  as  a  proof  of 
his  sense  of  religion,  that  he  should  dissolve  it.  The  Duke, 
confessing  this  to  be  the  most  difficult  of  all  the  trials  imposed 
upon  him,  yet  added  that,  having  already  sacrificed  so  much 
for  the  love  of  God,  he  would  also  give  up  Geilana,  notwith- 
standing that  she  was  so  dear  to  him,  as  soon  as  a  military  ex- 
pedition, on  which  he  was  then  summoned,  sliould  be  at  an 
end.  On  being  informed,  after  his  departure,  of  what  had 
passed,  Geilana  determined  to  take  her  revenge  ;  and,  seizing 
the  opportunity  when  St.  Kilian,  accompanied  by  two  of  his 
brethren,  was  employed  in  chanting  the  midnight  service,  she 
sent  an  assassin,  with  orders  to  put  them  all  to  death.  As  the 
saint  had  exhorted  them  to  receive  calmly  the  wished-for  crown 
of  martyrdom,  no  resistance  was  made  by  'any  of  the  party, 
and  they  were,  one  by  one,  quietly  beheaded.  On  the  same 
night,  their  remains  were  hastily  deposited  in  the  earth,  to- 
gether with  their  clothes  and  pontifical  ornaments,  the  sacred 
books  and  cross ;  and  were,  many  years  after,  discovered  by 
St.  Bur  chard,  bishop  of  Wurtzburg.  Of  the  impious  Geilana 
we  are  told,  that  she  was  seized  with  an  evil  spirit,  which  so 
grievously  tormented  her  that  she  soon  after  died;  and,  to 
this  day,  St.  Kilian  is  honoured  as  Wurtzburg's  patron  saint. 

To  this  period  it  seems  most  reasonable  to  refer  the  patron 
saint  of  Tarentum,  Cataldus,  of  whose  acts  more  has  been 
written,  and  less  with  certainty  known,  than  of  any  other  of 
the  great  ornaments  of  Irish  church  history.f  His  connexion 
with  the  celebrated  school  of  Lismore,  which  was  not  founded 

*  "  Dr.  Lingard  says  {Anglo-Saxon  Church,  chap.  xiii.  note  12.)  that  Alcuin, 
in  the  poem  de  Pont.  Ebor.  v.  1045,  calls  Wire  an  Anglo-Saxon.  Now,  in  the 
said  poem,  which,  by  the  by,  was  not  written  by  Alcuin,  there  is  not  a  word 
about  Wiro  at  that  verse,  nor,  as  far  as  I  can  find,  in  any  other  part  of  it."— 
Lanigan,  chap,  xviii.  note  105. 

t  See,  for  a  long  account  of  this  saint,  Usher's  De  Brit.  Eccles.  Primord. 
751.  et  seq.  From  a  Life  of  Cataldus,  in  verse,  by  Bouaventura  Moronus, 
Usher  cites  some  opening  lines,  of  which  the  following  are  a  specimen :— 

21* 


246  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

till  about  the  year  669,  places  him,  at  least,  towards  the  con- 
clusion of  the  seventh  century,  if  not  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighth ;  it  being  evident,  from  the  mention  of  Lismore,  in 
some  of  the  numerous  poems  dedicated  to  his  praise,  that  the 
fame  of  that  school  had,  at  the  time  when  he  flourished,  already 
extended  itself  to  foreign  lands. "*•' 

In  the  eighth  century,  indeed,  the  high  reputation  of  the 
Irish  for  scholarship  had  become  established  throughout  Eu- 
rope ;  and  that  mode  of  applying  the  learning  and  subtlety  of 
the  schools  to  the  illustration  of  theology,  which  assumed,  at  a 
later  period,  a  more  systematic  form,  under  the  name  of  the 
ScholEistic  Philosophy,  is  allowed  to  have  originated  among  the 
eminent  divines  whom  the  monasteries  of  Ireland,  in  the  course 
of  this  century,  poured  forth.  Of  the  dialectical  pov/ers  of 
these  theologians  we  are  furnished  with  one  remarkable  speci- 
men, in  a  sort  of  syllogistic  argument  used  by  them  on  the 
subject  of  the  Trinity,  which,  however  heterodox  may  seem 
its  tendency,  by  no  means  merits  the  charge  of  sophistry 
brought  against  it ;  as  it  but  puts  in  a  short,  condensed  form, 
the  main  difficulty  of  the  doctrine,  and  marks  clearly  the  two 
dangerous  shoals  of  Tritheism  and  Sabellianism,  between  which 
the  orthodox  Trinitarian  finds  it  so  difficult  to  steer.f 

"  Oceani  Diviim  Hesperii  Phoebique  cadentis 
Immortale  decus,  nulli  pietate  secundum, 
Prisca  Phalantiei  celebrant  quern  jura  Senatus, 
Externisque  dolet  mitti  gliicialis  Iberne, 
Musa,  refer." 
The  place  of  liis  birth  was  thus  announced,  we  are  told,  in  song,  in  the  an- 
cient churches  of  Tarentuni : 

"Gaude,  felix  Hibernia,  de  qua  proles  alma  progreditur :" 
And  again,  in  this  rhyming  epitaph  : 

"  Felix  Hibernia,  sed  magis  Tarentuni, 
Q.uae  claudis  in  tumulo  magnum  talentum." 
Usher  has  amply  exposed  in  this,  as  in  numerous  other  instances,  the  im- 
pudent pretences  on  which  the  notorious  Dempster  has  laid  claim  to  our  Irish 
saints,  as  natives  of  Scotland. 

♦  In  a  passage  too  long  to  be  given  entire,  Bonaventura  Moronus  has  de- 
scribed the  multitudes  of  foreign  scholars  that  flocked  from  every  part  of 
Europe  to  the  famous  school  at  Lismore,  where  Cataldus  had  been  educated; 
*'  Undique  conveniunt  proceres,  quos  dulce  trahebat 
Discendi  studium,  major  num  cognita  virtue. 

An  laudata  foret 

Certatim  hi  properant  diverse  tramite  ad  urbem 
Lesmoriam,  juvenis  primos  ubi  transigit  annos." 
t  "  Apud  modernos  scholasticos  maxime  apud  Scotos  est  syllogismus  delu- 
sionis,  ut  dicunt,  Trinitatem,  sicut  personarum,  ita  esse  substantiarum." — 
Letter  of  Benedict,  Abbot  of  Aniane,  quoted  by  Mosheim,  vol.  ii.  cent.  viii. 
chap.  3.  The  object  of  the  syllogism  of  those  Irish  scholastics  is  thus  de- 
scribed by  Benedict :— "  duatenus  si  adsenserit  illectus  auditor,  Trinitatem 
esse  trium  substantiarum  Deum,  trium  derogetur  cultor  Deorum:  si  autem 


VIRGILIUS.  247 

As  we  approach  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century,  the  lit- 
erary annals  of  the  country  present  a  much  rarer  display  of 
eminent  native  names.  But,  however  thinly  scattered,  they 
were  the  sole  or  cliief  lights  of  their  time.  Minds,  in  advance 
of  the  age  they  live  in,  have  always  received  and  deserved  a 
double  portion  of  fame  ;  and  there  is  one  distinguished  Irish- 
man of  this  period,  whose  name,  from  the  darkness  in  which  it 
shone  out,  will  continue  to  be  remembered  when  those  of  far 
more  gifted  men  will  have  passed  into  oblivion.*  Virgilius, 
whose  real  name  is  supposed  to  have  been  Feargil,  or  Feargalf , 
appeared  first  as  a  missionary  abroad,  about  the  year  746,  when, 
arriving  in  France,  he  attracted  the  notice  and  friendship  of 
Pepin,  the  father  of  Charlemagne,  and  became  an  inmate  of 
his  princely  residence  near  Compiegne,  on  the  Oise.  From 
thence,  after  a  stay  of  two  years,  he  proceeded  to  Bavaria, 
bearing  letters  of  introduction  from  his  able  patron  to  the 
duke  Odilo,  then  ruler  of.  that  duchy.  The  great  English 
missionary,  Boniface, — the  Apostle,  as  he  is  in  general  styled, 
of  the  Germans, — had  been  lately  appointed  to  the  new  arch- 
bishopric of  Mentz,  and  a  difference  of  opinion  on  a  point  of 
theology,  between  him  and  Virgilius,  who  had  been  placed 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  his  see,  first  brought  them  into  colli- 
sion with  each  other.  Some  ignorant  priest  having  been  in 
the  habit  of  using  bad  Latin  in  administering  baptism,  St. 
Boniface,  who  chose  to  consider  the  ceremony  thus  performed 
to  be  invalid,  ordered  Virgilius,  in  some  such  cases  that  had 
occurred,  to  perform  the  baptism  over  again4  This  the  wiser 
abbot  spiritedly  refused,  maintaining  that  the  want  of  grammati- 
cal knowledge  in  the  minister  could  not  invalidate  the  efficacy 
of  the   ordinance.     Confident,  too,  in  the  correctness  of  his 

abnuerit,  personarum  denegatur  culpetur  ;"  that  is,  as  explained  by  Mosheim, 
"  You  must  either  affirm  or  deny  that  the  three  Persons  in  the  Deity  are  three 
substances:  if  you  affirm  it,  you  are  undoubtedly  a  Tritheist,  and  worship 
three  Gods  ;  if  you  deny  it,  this  denial  implies  that  they  are  not  three  distinct 
persons,  and  thus  you  fall  into  Sabellianism." 

*  "  Avant  tons  ces  savants  hommes,  on  avoit  admire  en  la  personne  de 
Virgile,  Eveque  de  Saltzbourg  et  Apotre  de  la  Carinthie,  de  grandes  connois- 
sances,  tant  sur  la  Philosophie  que  sur  la  Th6ologie.  II  est  le  premier  que 
Ton  sache  qui  ait  decouvert  les  Antipodes,  ou  I'autre  monde." — Hist.  Litt.  de 
la  France,  torn.  iv. 

t  "The  Irish  Fear,  sometimes  contracted  into  Fer,  has,  in  latinizing  of 
names,  been  not  seldom  changed  into  Fir.  For  Fear,  in  Irish,  signifies  man, 
as  Fjr  does  in  Latin.  Thus  an  abbot  of  Hy,  whose  name  is  constantly  writ- 
ten in  Irish  Fergna,  is  called  by  Adamnan  Virgnous,  through,  as  Colgan  ob- 
serves, a  Latin  inflection." — Lanigan,  chap.  xix.  note  127. 

I  In  performing  the  ceremony  of  baptism,  this  priest  used  to  say,  "  Baptizo 
te  in  nomine  Patria  et  Filia  et  Spiritua  Sancta,''  instead  of  "  Patris,  Filii,  et 
Spiritus  Sancti."— jE;;isf.  Zachar.  Vet.  Ep.  Hibcrn.  Sylloge. 


24S  HISTORY    OF    IllELAIND. 

opinion,  he  laid  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  before  Pope 
Zachary,  who  immediately  wrote  to  reprove  the  archbishop  for 
tlie  order  which  he  had  issued,  and  thus  virtually  gave  his  sanc- 
tion to  the  opposition  of  Virgilius. 

This  triumph  over  him  by  an  inferior  seems  to  have  rankled 
in  the  mind  of  Boniface,  who  from  thenceforth  sought  opportu- 
nities of  denouncing  Virgilius  to  the  pope,  as  guilty  of  various 
errors  on  jx)ints  of  catholic  doctrine.  Among  these  charges, 
the  most  serious,  as  may  be  concluded  from  the  excitement 
wliich  it  produced,  was  that  whicli  accused  the  Irish  abbot  of 
maintaining  that  there  "  was  another  world,  and  other  men, 
under  the  eartli."*  The  fact  was,  that  the  acute  mind  of  Vir- 
gilius had,  from  the  knowledge  acquired  by  him  in  the  Irish 
schools,  where  geographical  and  philosophical  studies  were 
more  cultivated  than  in  other  parts  of  the  West,  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  earth  was  of  a  spherical  figure,  and  tliat, 
by  a  necessary  consequence,  there  were  antipodes.  This,  as 
it  proved  upon  inquiry,  was  the  scientific  doctrine  which  had 
been  represented  ignorantly  to  the  pope,  as  a  belief  in  another 
world  below  the  eartii,  distinct  from  ours,  inhabited  by  men, 
not  of  the  race  of  Adam,  nor  included  among  those  for  whom 
Christ  dicd.f  It  is  by  no  moans  wonderful  tliat,  on  such  a  re- 
presentation, as  well  of  the  opinion  as  of  the  deductions  from 
k,  pope  Zachary  should  regard  it  as  an  alarming  heresy,  and 
write,  in  answer  to  the  archbishop,  that,  ''should  the  charge 
be  proved,  a  council  must  be  convened,  and  the  offender  ex- 
pelled from  the  church."  As  no  record  exists  of  any  further 
proceedings  ujwn  the  subject,  we  may  take  for  granted  tliat 
the  accused  abbot  found  means  of  clearing  himself  from  tiic 
aspersion!  ;  and  so  little  did  tbis  memorable  charge  of  heresy 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  preferment,  earthly  or  heavenly,  that 
in  a  few  years  afler  he  was  made  bishop  of  Saltzburg,  and  in 
A.  D.  1233,  we  find  him  canonized  by  pope  Gregory  IX. 

Such  are  the  real  particulars  of  a  transaction  which  it  has 
been  the  object  of  many  writers  to  misrepresent,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  flippantly  accusing  the  church  of  Rome  of  a  deliberate 
design  to  extinguish  the  light  of  science,  and  obstruct  the  pro- ' 

*  "  Quod  alius  mundus  et  alii  homines  sub  terra  sint,  seu  alius  sol  et  luna." 
—Bonifac.  Epist.  Bibliothec.  Patrum. 

t  The  arifument  of  Boniface  was,  that  "  Si  essent  antipodes,  alii  homines 
adeoque  alius  Christus  introduceretur." 

X  "  Disceptationis  cxitum  non  comperio.  Fit  verisimile  ant  purgasse  se 
Virgilium  Pontilici,  sive  coram,  sive  per  littoras :  aut,  cognitis  invidorum 

utriusque  fraudibus ultro,  quod  inter  l>onos  solet,  in  graliam 

esse  reditum." — Velser,  Rerum  Boiarum,  lib.  v. 


CLEMENT    AND    ALBINUS.  249 

gress  of  truth.*  Were  it  even  certain  that  this  pope  was  slow 
to  believe  in  the  existence  of  antipodes,  he  would  at  least  have 
erred  in  good  company  ;  as  already  the  poet  Lucretius  had  pro- 
nounced this  belief  to  be  inconsistent  with  reasonf ;  while  no 
less  a  church  authority  than  St.  Augustine  had  denounced  it  as- 
contrary  to  the  Scriptures. f  But  there  is  every  reason  to  sup- 
pose, that  pope  Zachary,  on  the  doctrine  of  Virgilius  being 
explained  to  him,  saw  that  it  was  an  opinion  to  be  at  least 
tolerated,  if  not  believed  ;  and  so  far  was  the  propounder  of  it 
from  being,  as  is  commonly  stated,  punished  by  losing  his 
bishopric^,  that  it  appears,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  been  short- 
ly after  his  promulgation  of  this  doctrine  that  he  was  raised  to 
the  see  of  Saltzburg. 

The  life  of  this  learned  and  active  man,  after  his  elevation 
to  the  see  of  Saltzburg,  was  marked  by  a  succession  of  useful 
public  acts  ;  and  the  great  Basilic,  raised  by  him  in  honour  of 
St.  Rupert,  attested  at  once  the  piety  and  magnificence  of  hie 
nature.  Bat  the  most  lasting  service  rendered  by  him  to  the 
cause  of  religion,  was  the  zealous  part  which  he  took  in  pro- 
pagating the  Gospel  among  the  Carinthians.  Two  young 
princes  of  the  reigning  family  of  that  province  having  been, 
at  his  request,  baptized  and  educated  as  Christians,  he  found 
himself  enabled,  through  their  means,  when  they  afterwards 
succeeded  to  power,  so  far  to  extend  and  establish  the  church 
already  planted  in  their  dominions,  as  fully  to  justify  his  claim 
to  the  title  of  the  Apostle  of  Carinthia. 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  munificent  Charlemagne,  that 
country  on  whose  shores  the  missionary  and  the  scholar  had 
never  failed  to  meet  with  welcome  and  fame,  had  become  a 
still  more  tempting  asylum  for  the  student  and  the  exile  ;  and 
among  the  learned  of  other  lands  who  enjoyed  that  prince's 
patronage,  those  from  Ireland  were  not  the  least  conspicuous 
or  deserving.     The  strange  circumstances  under  which  two 

*  Among  others,  D'Alembert  has  founded  on  this  supposed  persecution 
of  the  Irish  scholar,  whom  he  honours  so  far  as  to  connect  his  name  witli 
Galileo's,  some  strong  charges  against  the  tribunal  of  Rome,  which,  he  says, 
"  condamna  un  celebre  astronome  pour  avoir  soutenu  le  mouvement  de  la 
terre,  et  le  declara  h6r6tique  ;  a-peu-pres  comme  Je  pape  Zacharie  avoit  con- 
damne,  quelques  siecles  auparavant,  un  Eveque,  pour  n'avoir  pas  pense 
comme  Saint  Augustin  sur  les  Antipodes,  et  pour  avoir  devin6  leur  existence 
six  cens  ans  avant  que  Cristophe  Columbe  les  decouvrit."— £)iscoMrs  Prelim, 
de  r Encyclopedic. 

t  Lib.  i.  1064.  |  De  Civitat.  Dei,  lib.  xvi.  c.  9. 

§  Thus,  Dr.  Campbell,  one  of  the  most  pretending  and  superficial  of  the 
writers  on  Irish  affairs,  speaks  of  "  this  great  man  as  sentenced  to  degrada- 
tion, upon  his  conviction  of  being  a  Mathematician,  by  pope  Zachary,  in  the 
eighth  century." — Strictures  on  the  Ecclesiast.  and  Lit.  Hist,  of  Ireland. 


250  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

itinerant  Irish  scholars,  named  Clement  and  Albinus,  contrived 
to  attract  the  emperor's  notice,  are  thus  related  by  a  monkish 
chronicler  of  the  time.*  Arriving,  in  company  with  some 
British  merchants,  on  the  shores  of  France,  these  two  Scota 
of  Ireland,  as  they  arc  designated  by  the  chronicler,  observing 
that  the  crowds  who  flocked  around  them  on  their  arrival  wer^ 
eager  only  for  saleable  articles,  could  think  of  no  other  mode 
of  drawing  attention  to  themselves,  tlian  by  crying  out  "  Whc 
wants  wisdom  ?  let  him  come  to  us,  for  we  have  it  to  sell."  B) 
continually  repeating  this  cry,  they  soon  succeeded  hi  becom* 
ing  objects  of  remark ;  and  as  they  were  found,  upon  nearei 
inquiry,  to  be  no  ordinary  men,  an  account  of  them  was  fortb 
with  transmitted  to  Charlemagne,  who  gave  orders  that  they 
should  be  conducted  into  his  presence.  Their  scheme  or  wliim^ 
whichsoever  it  might  have  been,  was  at  once  crowned  with 
success ;  as  the  king,  finding  their  pretensions  to  wisdom  (as 
all  the  learning  of  that  time  was  by  courtesy  called)  to  be  not 
without  foundation,  placed  Clement  at  the  head  of  a  seminary 
which  he  then  established  in  France,  and  sent  Albinus  to  pre- 
side over  a  similar  institution  at  Pavia.f  The  historian  Deni- 
na,  remarking  tlie  fallen  state  of  Italy  at  this  period,  when  she 
was  compelled,  as  lie  says,  to  look  to  the  North  and  the  ex- 
treme West  for  instructors,  adds,  as  a  striking  proof  of  her 
reduced  condition,  that  Irish  monks  were  placed  by  Charle- 
magne at  the  head  of  some  of  her  schools.]: 

Some  doubts  have  been  started  as  to  the  truth  of  this  charac- 
teristic adventure  of  the  two  Irish  scholars.^  But,  in  addition 
to  the  evidence  on  which  the  story  rests,  and  which  is  the 

*  Monach.  Sangall.  dc  Gcst.  Carol. 

t  "  On  coinpte  encoro  (say  the  Benedictines)  entre  les  co-oporateurs  de 
Charlemagne  dans  Text'icution  de  son  grand  dessein,  un  certain  Clement,  Hi- 
bernois  de  nation." — Tom.  iv. 

I  "  Ma  ben  maggior  maraviglia  ci  dovrd  parere,che  I'ltalia  non  solaniente 
allora  abbia  dovuto  riconosccre  da'  barbari  boreali  il  rinnovaniento  della 
milizia,ma  abbia  da  loro  dovuto  apprendere  in  quelle  stesso  tempo  le  scienze 
piu  necessarie  ;  e  che  btsognasse  dagli  ultimi  confini  d'occidente  et  del  nord 
far  venire  in  Italia  i  maestri  ad  insegnarci,  non  che  altro,  la  lingua  latina. 
Carlo  Magno  nel  781  avea  jjrejiosto  alle  scuole  d'  Italia  e  di  Francia  due  Mo- 
iiachi  Irlandesi."— Z)e//e  Rivoluiioni  it  Italia,  lib.  viii.  cap.  12. 

§  After  mentioning  that  one  of  these  Irishmen,  Clement,  had  been  detajned 
in  France  by  Charlemagne,  Tiraboschi  adds,  "  L'  altro  fu  da  lui  mandate  in 

Italia,  e  gli  fu  assignato  il  monastero  di  S.  Agostino  presso  Pavia, 

accioche  chiunque  fosse  bramoso,  potesse  esser  da  lui  istruito.  Ecco  il  gran 
racconto  del  Monaco  di  S.  Gallo,  su  cui  e  fondata  1'  accennata  commune 
ojunione.  Ancorche  esso  si  ammettesse  per  vero,  altro  finalmente  non  po- 
tremmo  raccogliene,  se  non  che  uno  Scozzese  fu  mandate  da  Carlo  Magno  a 
Favia,  per  tenervi  scuola ;  ne  cio  basterebbe  a  prevare,  che  vi  fosse  tale 
scarsezza  d'  uomini  dotti  in  Italia,  che  convenisse  inviarvi  stranieri."— -S<oria 
dcUa  Lctterat.  Italian.,  torn.  iii.  lib.  3.  cap.  1. 


DUNGAL.  251 

same  relied  upon  for  most  of  the  early  life  of  Charlemagne, 
the  incident  is  marked  throughout  with  features  so  truly  Irish 
— the  dramatic  humour  of  the  expedient,  the  profession  itself 
of  an  itinerant  scholar,  to  a  late  period  common  in  Ireland, — 
that  there  appear  but  slight  grounds  for  doubting  the  authenti- 
city of  the  anecdote.  The  vehement  denial  of  its  truth  by 
Tiraboschi  is  actuated  too  evidently  by  offended  national  vani- 
ty, at  the  thought  of  an  Irishman  having  been  chosen  to  pre- 
side over  a  place  of  education  in  Italy,  to  be  received  with  the 
deference  his  authority  might  otherwise  command ;  and  both 
Muratori  and  Denina  have  given  their  sanction  to  the  main 
fact  of  the  narrative. 

In  the  latter  part  of  this  century  we  find  another  native  of 
Ireland,  named  Dungal,  trying  his  fortune,  with  far  more  valid 
claims  to  distinction,  in  France,  and  honoured  in  like  manner 
with  the  patronage  of  her  imperial  chief  Of  the  letter  ad- 
dressed by  this  learned  Scot*  to  Charlemagne,  on  the  two  solar 
eclipses  alleged  to  have  been  observed  in  Europe  in  the  year 
810,  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak ;  and,  however  su- 
perficial the  astronomical  knowledge  displayed  in  this  short 
tract,  tlie  writer  has  proved  himself  to  have  been  well  acquaint- 
ed with  all  that  the  ancients  had  said  upon  the  subjectf ;  while 
both  in  his  admission  that  two|  solar  eclipses  might  take  place 
within  the  year,  and  his  doubt  that  such  a  rare  incident  had 
occurred  in  810,  he  is  equally  correct.  The  very  circumstance, 
indeed,  of  his  having  been  selected  by  Charlemagne,  though 
hvmg  a  recluse,  at  that  time,  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Denis, 
as  one  of  the  few  European  scholars  worthy  of  being  consulted 
on  such  a  point,  shows  sufficiently  the  high  estimation  in  which 
he  was  then  held. 

We  find  him  some  time  after  in  Italy,  acting  as  master  of 

*  Having  stated  that  Mabillon  supposed  Dungal  to  be  an  Irisliman  the 
authors  of  the  Hist.  Litteraire  de  la  France  say,  "  Ce  qui  paroit  appuy6  tant 
sur  son  npm  que  sur  ce  que  rHibernie  fournit  alors  plusieurs  autres  grands 
hommes  a  la  Prance." 

t  Dacher.  Spicileg.  torn.  iii.  The  following  remarks  on  Dungal's  letter  are 
from  the  pen  of  Ismael  Bullialdus,  "  astronomus  profunda?  indaginis  "  as 
Ricciolus  styles  him,  whom  D'Achery  had  consulted  on  the  subject  — "'Non 
est  enim  possibile  ut  in  locis  ab  squinoctiali  linea  paulo  remotioribus  intra 
semestre  spatium  bina;  eclipses  .solis  cernantur,  quod  sub  linea  fequinoctiali 
vel  in  locis  subjacentibus  parallelis  ab  ea  non  longe  descriptis  accidere  po- 
test:  intra  vero  quinquemestre  spatium  in  eodem  hemisphffirio  boreali  vel 
austrino  bin.-e  eclipses  solares  conspici  quajunt,  quce  omnia  demonstrari 
possunt  utpote  vera.  Sed  hujus  Epistolas  Auctor  Dungalus  has  differentias 
ignorasse  videtur." 

J  la  Struyk's  Catalogue  of  Eclipses  there  occur,  I  think,  four  instances 
ot  a  solar  eclipse  having  been  observed  twice  within  the  space  of  a  year, 
VIZ    A.  D.  237-8,  812-3,  1185-0,  and  H08-9. 


252  HISTORY    OF   IRELAND. 

tlie  great  public  school  established  at  Pa  via  by  Lothaire  I.  \ 
with  jurisdiction,  too,  over  all  the  other  subordinate  schools 
which  this  prince  founded  in  the  different  cities  of  Italy.*  How 
high  was  the  station  assigned  to  the  Irish  professor,  may  be 
judged  from  a  Capitularf,  issued  by  Lothaire,  in  which,  while 
the  various  cities  where  schools  had  then  been  founded  are 
enumerated,  the  name  of  Dungal  alone  of  all  the  different 
professors  is  mentioned,  and  every  other  institution  is  placed  ii 
subordination  to  that  of  Pavia. 

A  work  written  by  this  eminent  man  about  the  year  827,  in" 
answer  to  an  attack  made  by  Claudius,  bishop  of  Turin,  on  the 
Catholic  practice  of  honouring  images  and  paying  reverence 
to  saints,  is  praised  by  a  distinguished  Italian  writer,  as  dis- 
playing not  merely  a  fund  of  sacred  learning,  but  also  a  know- 
ledge of  polite  literature,  and  of  the  classical  graces  of  style.^ 
In  opposition  to  Claudius,  who,  reviving  the  heresy  of  Vigilan- 
tius,  maintained  that  saints  ought  not  to  be  honoured,  nor  any 
reverence  paid  to  images,  the  Irish  Doctor  contends  zealously 
for  the  ancient  Catholic  practice  ,  and,  instead  of  resorting  to 
the  aid  of  argument  on  a  point  solely  to  be  decided  by  authori- 
ty and  tradition,  appeals  to  the  constant  practice  of  the  church 
from  the  very  ealiest  times,  which  has  been,  he  says,  to  revere, 
with  the  honour  suitable  to  them,  the  figure  of  the  cross, 
and  the  pictures  and  relics  of  saints,  without  either  sacrificing 
to  them  or  oifering  them  the  worship  which  is  due  to  God 
alone.  In  honour  of  his  countryman  St.  Columbanus,  Dungal 
bequeathed  to  the  monastery  of  Bobbio  a  valuable  collection  of 
books,  the  greater  part  of  which  are  now  at  Milan,  having 
been  removed  to  the  Ambrosian  library  by  cardinal  Frederic 
Borromeo.§ 

*  According  to  Denina,  not  merely  the  management  of  these  schools,  hut 
the  credit  of  founding  them  also,  is  to  be  attributed  to  Dungal :— "  Fu  nell 
827  fatto  venire  di  Scozia  un  monaco  per  nome  Dungalo,  famoso  in  quell* 
eta.  pel  suo  sapere.  Ebbe  cestui  a  reggere  in  particolare  lo  studio  di  Pavia, 
ma  fu  nello  stesso  tempo  autore  e  quasi  fondatore  delle  altre  scuole  d'  Ivrea, 
di  Torino,  di  Fermo,  di  Verona,  di  Vicenza,  di  Cividal  del  Friuli,  alle  quale 
dovevano  concorrere  ripartitamente  gli  scolari  da  tutte  le  altre  citta  del 
regno  Italico,  siccome  ordino  Lottario  in  suo  famoso  capitolare."— Lib.  viii. 
cap.  J2. 

t  This  Capitular,  as  given  by  Tiraboschi,  thus  commences :—"  Primum  in 
Papia  conveniant  ad  Dungallnm,  de  Mediolano,  de  Laude,  de  Bergamo,  de 
Novaria,"  &c.  &;c.— Tom.  iii.  lib.  3.  cap.  1.  Tiraboschi  adds,  "Chi  fossero  i 
Profe.ssori  nelle  altre  citta,  non  ce  n'  e  rimasta  memoria.  Solo  quel  di  Pavia 
si  nomina  in  questa  legge,  cioe  Dungalo." — lb. 

X  "Caeterum  liber  ille  Dungali  hominem  eruditum  sacrisque  etiam  literis 
ornatum  prodit,  at  simul  in  grammaticali  foro  ac  Prisciani  deliciis  enutri- 
tum."— JlfMra«ori. 

§  A  catalogue  of  the  books  belonging  to  the  library  at  Bobbio,  together 
with  the  names  of  the  respective  donors,  has  been  preserved  by  Muratori 


GREEK    MISSIONARIES  IN  IRELAND.  253 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  Ireland, 
when  it  was  her  destiny  to  undergo  a  great  and  disastrous 
change ;  when  that  long  seclusion  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
comprising  a  period  commensurate  with  the  whole  of  her  au- 
thentic history,  which,  with  a  few  doubtful  exceptions,  had 
kept  her  verdant  fields  untouched  by  the  foot  of  an  invader, 
was  at  length  fiercely  broken  in  upon ;  and  a  series  of  inva- 
sions, from  the  north  of  Europe,  began  to  be  inflicted  upon  her 
people,  which  checked  the  course  of  their  civilization,  kept 
the  whole  island  for  more  than  three  centuries  in  a  continued 
state  of  confusion  and  alarm,  and  by  dividing,  even  more  than 
by  wasting,  the  internal  strength  of  the  kingdom,  prepared  the 
way  for  its  final  and  utter  subjugation  by  the  English.  Before 
we  plunge,  however,  into  the  dark  and  revolting  details  of  this 
period,  which,  marked  as  they  are  with  the  worst  excesses  of 
foreign  aggression,  are  yet  more  deeply  disgraced  by  the  stain 
of  domestic  treachery  and  strife,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  infringe 
so  far  on  the  order  of  historical  synchronism,  as  to  complete 
the  rapid  review  we  have  here  commenced  of  the  many  peace- 
ful triumphs  achieved  by  Irish  genius  during  this  century,  as 
well  at  home  as  in  foreign  countries,  leaving  the  warfare  and 
political  transactions  of  the  same  interval  to  be  treated  sepa- 
rately afterwards. 

It  should  have  been  mentioned  in  the  account  of  our  cele- 
brated scholar  Virgilius,  that  in  leaving  Ireland  he  is  said  to 
have  been  accompanied  by  a  Greek  bishop,  named  Dubda ;  a 
circumstance  which,  coupled  with  the  fact  stated  by  Usher  of 
there  having  been  a  Greek  church  at  Trim,  in  the  county  of 
Meath*,  which  was  so  called  even  to  his  time,  proves  that  the 
fame  of  the  schools  and  churches  of  Ireland  had  attracted 
thither  several  Greek  ecclesiastics ;  and  accounts  for  so  many 
of  her  own  native  scholars,  such  as  St.  Columbanus,  Cummian, 
and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  John  Erigena,  having  been  so 
perfectly  masters  of  the  Greek  language.  One  of  the  chief 
arguments,  indeed,  employed  by  Ledwich,  in  his  attempt  to 
show  that  the  early  church  of  Ireland  was  independent  of  the 
see  of  Rome,  is  founded  on  those  traces  of  connexion,  through 

(Antiq.  Ital.  vol.  viii.  Dissert.  43.),  and,  in  this  document,  supposed  to  be 
written  in  the  10th century,  the  name  of  Dungal  is  thus  mentioned:—"  Item, 
de  libris  quos  Dungalus  prapcipuus  Scotorum  obtulit  beatissimo  Columbano ;" 
— meaning,  to  the  monastery  founded  by  Columbanus. 
*  Pontificem  secum  habuit  proprium  Dobdan  nomine,  Grtecum,  qui  ipsum 

secutus  erat  ex  patria Mirarer  vero  ex  Hibernia  nostra  hominem 

Graecum  prodiisse,  nisi  scirem  in  agro  Midensi  apud  Trimmenses  £Bdem 
sacram  extitisse,  quae  Grseae  Ecclesiae  nomen  ad  hunc  usque  diem  retinet, — 
Ejust.  Hibern.  Sylloge,  note  xvi. 

Vol.  I.  22 


254  HI&TOEi;     OF    IRtLAiSD. 

Greek  and  iVsiatic  missionaries,  with  the  East,  which,  there  is 
no  doubt,  are  to  be  Ibund  in  the  records  and  transactions  of  that 
period.  Had  such  instances,  however,  been  even  numerous 
enough  to  prove  more  than  a  casual  and  occasional  intercourse 
with  those  regions,  it  would  not  have  served  the  purpose  tliis 
reverend  antiquary  sought  to  gain :  as,  at  the  time  when 
(Christianity  was  first  introduced  into  Ireland,  the  heads  of  the 
Greek  church  were  on  the  best  terms  with  the  see  of  Rome  ; 
Asiatics  and  Greeks,  during  the  very  period  to  which  he  alludes, 
were  raised  to  the  chair  of  St.  Peter ;  and  it  was  not  till  many 
centuries  after,  that  the  schism  of  the  Greeks  divided  the 
Christian  world. 

In  addition  to  the  evidence  of  their  merits  furnished  by  the 
recorded  acts  of  the  Irish  missionaries  themselves,  it  is  but 
just  to  mention  also  some  of  those  tributes  of  admiration,  which 
tiieir  active  piety  and  learning  drevv  from  their  contemporaries. 
A  curious  letter  addressed  by  the  Saxon  scholar  Aidhelm*,  to 
his  countryman  Eahfrid,  wlio  had  just  returned  from  a  long- 
course  of  study  in  Ireland,  though  meant,  in  its  inflated  style 
of  irony,  to  tlirow  ridicule  on  the  Irish  schools,  is  rendered,  by 
the  jealousy  which  it  so  involuntarily  betrays,  far  more  flatter- 
ing than  the  most  prepense  panegyric; — "Why  should  Ire- 
land," says  the  writer,  "  whither  troops  of  students  are  daily 
transported,  boast  of  such  unspeakable  excellence,  as  if  in  the 
rich  soil  of  England,  Greek  and  Roman  masters  were  not  to  bo 
had  to  unlock  the  treasures  of  divine  knowledge.!  Thougli 
Ireland,  ricli  and  bl(X)ming  in  scholars,  is  adorned  like  the 
l>oles  of  the  world  with  innumerable  bright  stars,  it  is  Britain 
lias  her  radiaut  sun,  her  sovereign  Poutift'  Theodore,  nurtured 
from  the  earliest  age  in  the  school  of  philosophy :  it  is  she 
possesses  Adrian  his  companion,  graced  with  every  virtue  .  .  . 
This  is  that  Theodore  who,  though  he  should  be  surrounded  by 
a  circle  of  Hibernian  scholars,  as  a  boar  in  the  midst  of  snarl- 


*  The  instructor  of  Aldhelm  was  Maidulph,  an  Irishman  ;  though  Mr. 
Turner  (unintentionally,  as  I  am  willinj,'  to  think)  suppresses  the  fact, 
merely  fiuyhig  that  Aldhelni  had  "continued  his  studies  at  Mahnsbury, 
where  Maululf  an  Irir-lnnan  had  founded  a  monastery."— Vol.  ii.  Aldhelm 
himsielf  became  afterwards  abbot  of  the  monastery. 

t  "  Cur,  inqnani,  Hibcrnia,  quo  catorvatim  islinc  lectores  classibus  advccti 
conflnunt,  inelfabili  quodam  privilegio  efieratur:  ac  si  istic,  foBcundo  Bri- 
tanniae  in  cospite,  didascali  Argivi  Romanive  duiritos  reperiri  minime  que- 
ant,  qui  coelestis  tetrica  enodantes  bibliotheca?  problemata  sciolis  rescrare  se 
Fciscilanliburi  valeant.  Quamvis  enim  prajdictum  HibernijB  rus,  discentium 
opuians  vernansque  (ut  ita  dixerim)  pascuosa  numerositate  lectorum,  queui- 
admodum  poli  cardines  astriferis  micantium  ornentur  vibraminibus  side- 
rum  ;  ast  tamen,"  &(•.  Scc.—F.pist.  Ilihern.  Sylloge. 


PIETY    AKD    LEARNING    OF    THE    IRISH.  255 

ing  dogs,  yet  as  soon  as  he  bares  his  grammatical  tooth,  puts 
quickly  to  flight  the  rebel  phalanx."* 

The  tributes  of  Bede  to  the  piety,  learning,  and  benevolence 
ot*  the  Irish  clergy,  have  been  frequently  adverted  to  in  these 
pages;  and  while  justice  was  thus  liberally  rendered  to  them 
by  the  English,  we  find  a  French  author  of  the  ninth  century, 
Eric  of  Auxerre,  equally  zealous  in  their  praise.  "  What  shall 
I  say,"  he  exclaims,  "of  Ireland,  who,  despising  the  dangers 
of  tlie  deep,  is  migrating,  with  almost  her  whole  train  of  phi- 
losophers, to  our  coasts  r'f 

Among  the  names  that,  early  in  tiie  ninth  century,  adorn 
this  list  of  distinguished  Irishmen,  are  tliose  of  Sedulius  and 
Donatus,  the  former  the  author,  it  is  supposed,  of  the  Com- 
mentaries on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  From  the  many  Irish 
scholars  of  this  name  that  arose  at  different  periods  into  repu- 
tation, considerable  difficulty  has  been  found  in  distinguishing 
their  respective  times  and  writings.]:  But  it  appears  pretty 
certain,  though  both  were  natives  of  Ireland,  that  the  author 
of  the  poems  mentioned  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work  is  to 
be  considered  as  a  distinct  person  from  the  commentator  on 
St.  Paul.  In  the  subject  and  origin  of  one  of  the  writings 
ascribed  to  the  later  Sedulius^,  may  be  found  a  proof  of  the 
constant  prevalence  among  his  countrymen  of  that  tradition 
respecting  their  origin  from  Spain,  to  which  I  have  had  occa- 
sion, at  the  commencement  of  this  volume,  to  advert.  On 
account  of  the  reputation  he  had  acquired  by  his  commentaries 
on  St.  Paul,  this  abbot  was  dispatched  by  the  pope,  with  the 
dignity  of  bishop  of  Oreto,  to  Spain,  for  the  purpose  of  recon- 
ciling some  differences  of  opinion  that  had  arisen  among  the 
clergy  of  that  country.  The  Spaniards,  objecting  to  tlie  ap- 
pearance of  a  stranger  in  such  a  capacity,  made  some  difficulty 
as  to  receiving  him ;  on  which  Sedulius,  it  is  said,  drew  up  his 
treatise  entitled  "  the  concordance  of  Spain  and  Hibernia,"  in 
which,  referring,  no  doubt,  to  the  traditions  of  both  countries,  he 

*  "  Etiamsi  beatsc  memoriae  Tlieodorus  summi  sacerdotii  gubernacula 
resrens,  Hibernensium  globo  discipulorum  (ceu  aper  truculeiitus  molossoruni 
catasta  ringente  vallatus)  stipetnr;  limato  perniciter  Grammatico  riento."' 
&c.  8cc.—Ih. 

t  "  Q,uid  Hiberniam  memorem,  contempto  pelagi  discrimine,  pcuic  tot;i 
cum  grege  philosophorum  ad  littora  nostra  migrantem." — ^d  Carol.  Calr. 

X  See,  for  the  various  authorities  on  this  subject,  the  Ecclesiar.  Primord. 
769.,  where  the  result  of  the  mass  of  evidence  so  laboriously  brought  to- 
gether seems  to  be,  that  the  commentator  and  tlie  poet  were  decidedly  dis- 
tinct persons. 

§  Thus  mentioned  by  Hepidanus,  the  monk  of  St.  Gall,  under  the  year  818: 
— "  Sedulius  Scottus  clarus  habetur." 


256  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND, 

asserted  the  claims  of  the  Irish  to  be  considered  as  Spaniards, 
and  to  enjoy  all  the  privileges  of  the  Spanish  nation.* 

At  the  same  period  another  accomplished  Irishman,  Donatus, 
having  gone  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  was  induced  to  fix  him- 
self in  Italy,  and  became  soon  after  Bishop  of  Fiesole.  That 
he  left  some  writings  behind  him,  political  as  well  as  theo- 
logical, may  be  collected  from  the  epitaph  on  his  tomb,  com- 
posed by  himself.f  But  of  these  productions  the  only  remains 
that  have  reached  us  are  some  not  inelegant  verses,  warmly 
in  praise  of  his  native  land4 

But  the  most  remarkable  man  that  Ireland,  or  perhaps,  any 
other  country,  sent  forth,  in  tliose  ages,  was  the  learned  and 
subtle  John  Scotus ;  whose  distinctive  title  of  Erigena,  or,  as 
it  was  sometimes  written,  Eringena,  points  so  clearly  to  the 
land  of  his  birth,  that,  among  the  numbers  who  have  treated 
of  his  life  and  writings,  but  a  very  few  have  ventured  to  con- 
test this  point.  At  what  period  lie  removed  from  Ireland  to 
France  cannot  be  very  accurately  ascertained ;  but  is  is  con- 
jectured to  have  been  about  tlie  year  845,  when  he  had  already 
reached  the  age  of  manhood,  and  was  doubtless  furnished  with 
all  the  learning  of  his  native  schools ;  and  such  was  the  success, 
as  well  of  his  social  as  of  his  intellectual  powers,  that  Charles 
the  Bald,  king  of  France,  not  only  extended  to  him  his  patron- 
age, but  made  him  the  companion  of  his  most  secluded  and 
familiar  hours. 

For  the  early  travels  of  this  scholar  to  Greece  and  into  the 
East,  there  appears  to  be  no  other  foundation  than  a  wish  to 

*  Harris  on  Ware's  Writers,  art.  Sedulius. 
t  "  Gratuita  tliscipuJis  dictabam  scripta  libellis 
Schemata  metrorum,  dicta  beata  senum." 
X  "  Pinibus  occiduis  describitur  optima  tellus 
Nomine  ct  antiquis  Scotia  dicta  libris. 
Insula  dives  opum,  Kcmmarum,  vestis  et  auri  : 

Commoda  corporibus,  aere,  sole,  solo. 
Melle  fluit  pulchris  et  lacteis  Scotia  campis, 
Vestibus  atque  armis,  frugibus,  arte,  viris,"  &,c.  &c. 
The  translation  of  these  verses  given  in  O'Halloran's  History,  was  one 
of  the  earliest  pieces  of  poetry  with  which  in  my  youth  I  was  familiar ;  and 
it  is  purely  in  the  indulgence  of  old  recollections  that  I  here  venture  to  cite 
a  few  of  the  lines  :— 

"  Far  westward  lies  an  isle  of  ancient  fame, 
By  nature  bless'd,  and  Scotia  is  her  name, 
Enroll'd  in  books — exhaustless  is  her  store 
Of  veiny  silver  and  of  golden  ore. 
Her  fruitful  soil  for  ever  teems  with  wealth, 
With  gems  her  waters,  and  her  air  with  health ; 
Her  verdant  fields  with  milk  and  honey  flow, 
Her  woolly  fleeces  vie  with  virgin  snow. 
Her  waving  furrows  float  with  bearded  corn. 
And  arts  and  arms  her  envied  sons  adorn." 


account  for  his  extraordinary  knowledge  of  the  Greek  and 
(3ther  languages,  as  well  as  for  that  acquaintance  with  the 
mystic  theology  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  which  he  derived, 
in  reality,  from  his  study  of  the  writings  ascribed  to  J3ionysius 
the  Areopagite.  A  copy  of  these  treatises  had  been  sent  as  a 
present  to  Louis  I.,  by  Michael  Balbus,  the  Greek  emperor ; 
and  as  additional  reverence  was  attached,  in  France,  to  their 
contents,  from  the  notion  that  Dionysius,  the  supposed  author, 
was  the  same  as  St.  Denys,  the  first  bishop  of  Paris,  Charles 
the  Bald,  witli  a  view  of  rendering  the  work  accessible  to  such, 
readers  as  lumselfj  who  were  unacquainted  with  Greek,  ap- 
pointed Erigena  to  the  task  of  translating  it  into  jjatin. 

The  change  effected  in  tlic  theology  of  pjurope  by  this  book, 
as  well  as  by  tlie  principles  deduced  from  it  afterwards  in  the 
translator's  own  writings,  continued  to  be  felt  through  a  very 
long  period.  Previously  to  this  time,  the  scholastic  mode  of 
considering  religious  questions  had  prevailed  generally  among 
the  theologians  of  Europe* ;  but  tlie  introduction  to  the  mystic 
doctrines  of  Alexandria  by  John  Scotus  infused  a  new  element 
into  the  theology  of  the  Westf ;  and  the  keen  struggle  which 
then  commenced  betw^een  those  opposing  principles  has  formed 


*  By  Brucker  (torn.  iii.  Do  Scholastiris)  the  commencement  of  the  scliolastic 
tlieology  is  brought  down  so  late  as  to  the  twelfth  century;  but  it  is  plain 
from  his  owu  history  that  this  form  of  theology  had  a  much  earlier  origin  ; 
and  by  Mosheim  the  credit  of  first  introducing  it  is  attributed  to  the  Irish  of 
the  eighth  century. 

"  That  the  Hibernians,"  lie  says,  "  who  were  called  Scots  in  this  century, 
were  lovers  of  learning,  and  distinguished  themselves  in  these  times  of  igno- 
rance by  the  culture  of  the  sciences  beyond  all  the  other  European  nation.^, 
travelling  through  the  most  distant  lands,  both  with  a  view  to  improve  and 
to  communicate  their  knowledge,  is  a  fact  with  which  I  have  been  long  ac- 
quainted ;  as  we  see  them,  in  the  most  authentic  records  of  antiquity,  dis- 
charging, with  the  highest  reputation  and  applause,  the  function  of  doctor 
in  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  both  during  this  and  the  following  century. 
But  that  these  Hibernians  were  the  first  teachers  of  the  scholastic  theology 
in  Europe,  and  so  early  as  the  eighth  century  illustrated  the  doctrines  of 
religion  by  the  principles  of  philosophy,  I  learned  but  lately  from  the  testi- 
mony of  Benedict,  Abbot  of  Aniane,  in  the  province  of  Languedoc."  He 
then  produces  his  proofs,  to  which  I  refer  the  reader,  (Cent.  viii.  part  ii. 
chap.  3.)  and  adds : — "  From  hence  it  appears,  that  the  philosophical  or  scho- 
lastic theology  among  the  Latins  is  of  more  ancient  date  than  is  commonly 
imagined." 

t  "  Illos  enim  Latinis  auribus  accommodando  chaos  simul  Alexandrinuni. 
quod  plerosque  hactenus  in  Occidente  latuerat,  notum  fecit,  ansamque 
dedit  ut  cum  theologia  scholastica,  mystica  quoque  extolleret,  rationi  same 
et  philosophise  non  minus  inimica  quam  ilia  ut  supra  dictum." — Brucker.  De 
Philosoph.  Christianor.  Occident.  "  And  thus,"  adds  Brucker,  "  that  philo- 
sophic enthusiasm,  which  the  Oriental  philosophy  brought  forth  and  Pla- 
tonism  nursed,  which  Egypt  educated,  Asia  nurtured,  and  the  Greek  church 
adopted,  was  introduced,  under  the  pretext  and  authority  of  a  great  apos- 
tolic name,  ^nto  the  Western  churches,  and  there  gave  rise  lo  innumerable 
mischiefs."  ^i^^ 


258  HisxaiiY  OF  Ireland. 

a  considerable  part  of  the  history  of  religious  controversy  dowi 
to  the  present  day.  It  is  not  a  little  singular,  too,  that  while 
as  an  eminent  church  historian  alleges,  "  the  Hibernians  wen 
the  first  teachers  of  scholastic  theology  in  Europe,"  so  an 
Hibernian,  himself  unrivalled  among  the  dialecticians  of  hifi 
day,  should  have  been  also  the  first  to  introduce  into  the  arena 
the  antagonist  principle  of  mysticism. 

The  want  of  that  self-restraint  acquired  in  a  course  of  train- 
ing for  holy  orders, — for,  by  a  rare  fate  in  those  days,  Erigena 
was  both  a  scholar  and  a  layman, — is  observable  in  the  daring 
lengths  to  which  his  speculations  respecting  the  nature  of  God 
are  carried ;  speculations  bordering,  it  must  be  owned,  closely 
on  the  confines  of  Spinozism  or  Pantheism.  Thus,  "  the  soul," 
he  says,  "  will  finally  pass  into  the  primordial  causes  of  all 
things,  and  these  causes  into  God ;  so  that,  as  before  the  exist- 
ence of  tlie  world  there  was  nothing  but  God  and  the  causes 
of  all  things  in  God,  so  there  will  be,  after  its  end,  nothing  else 
than  God  and  the  causes  of  all  things  in  God."  With  the  same 
Pantheistic  view,  he  asserts  that  "  all  things  are  God,  and  God 
all  things, — that  God  is  the  maker  of  all  things,  and  made  in 
all."  It  is  plain  that  this  universal  deification  is  but  another 
form  of  universal  materialism ;  and  the  self-satisfaction,  and 
even  triumph,  with  which  so  good  and  pious  a  man — for  such 
Erigena  is  allowed  universally  to  have  been — could  come  to 
such  desolating  conclusions,  was  but  the  result  of  that  danger- 
ous principle  of  identifying  religion  with  philosophy,  for  which 
he  has  been  so  lauded  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
modern  apostles  of  rationalism.* 

The  notions  just  cited  are  promulgated  in  his  Treatise  on 
the  Division  of  Nature,  or  the  Nature  of  Things ;  and  though 
in  that  work,  which  was  written  subsequently  to  his  translation 
of  Dionysius,  there  is  to  be  found,  in  its  fullest  force,  the  intox- 
icating influence  of  the  fountain  at  which  lie  had  been  drink- 
ing, it  is  manifest  that,  even  before  he  had  become  the  inter- 
preter of  the  dreams  of  others,  his  mind  had  already  been 

*  "  Remarquez  qu'ils  sont  tous  eccI6siastiques  et  leur  philosophic  est  toute 
rcligieuse  et  toute  chr6tienne.  C'est  la  leur  commun  caractere  ;  ils  no  font 
tous,  sous  ce  rapport,  que  commenter  cette  belle  phrase  de  Scot  Erigene, '  il 
n'y  a  pas  deux  6tudes,  Tune  de  la  philosophic,  I'autre  de  la  religion  ;  la  vraie 
philosophic  est  la  vraie  religion,  et  la  vraie  religion  est  la  vraie  philosophic.'  " 
—  Victor  Cousin,  Cours  de  Philosophic,  torn.  i.  lepon  9. 

The  original  passage,  here  referred  to,  is  as  follows :— "  duid  est  aliud 
de  philosophia  tractare,  nisi  verae  religionis,  qua  summa  et  principalis 
omnium  rerum  causa  Deus,  et  humiliter  colitur  et  rationabiliter  investi- 
gatur,  regulas  exponere?  Conficitur  inde  veram  esse  philosophiam  veram 
religionem,  conversimqiie  verum  religionem  esse  veram  philosophiam."— 
De  Pradestinatione. 


JOHN   SCOTUS    ERIGENA.  259 

stored,  by  the  study  of  the  Platonic  writers,  with  visionary 
notions  of  its  own ;  as,  in  the  share  taken  by  him  in  the  famous 
controversy  with  the  monk  Gotescalc,  on  the  subject  of  pre- 
destination, he  had,  in  the  midst  of  those  dialectic  subtleties  in 
which  his  chief  strength  and  enjoyment  lay,  exhibited  the 
same  daringness  of  research  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
nature,  which  characterizes  those  later  flights  of  his  genius  to 
which  I  have  adverted.*  Combating  the  doctrine  of  Gotescalc, 
who  maintained,  in  accordance  with  the  views  of  St.  Augustine, 
and,  afterwards,  of  Calvin,  that  the  decrees  of  God  had,  from 
all  eternity,  preordained  some  men  to  everlasting  life,  and 
others  to  everlasting  punishment  and  misery,  Erigena  denied 
that  there  was  any  predestination  of  the  damned ;  contending 
that  the  prescience  of  God  extended  only  to  the  election  of 
the  blessed;  since  he  could  not  foresee  that  of  which  he  was 
not  the  author,  and,  being  the  source  neither  of  sin  nor  evil, 
could  not  foreknow  or  predestinate  them.  In  truth,  identifying, 
as  he  did,  all  things  with  God,  it  was  not  possible  for  him  to 
admit  of  permanent  pain  or  evil  in  the  system,  without  making 
that  Being  a  sharer  in  them.  Hence  his  doctrine,  that  the 
punishment  of  the  damned,  and  even  the  wickedness  of  the 
devils  themselves,  will,  some  time  or  other,  cease,  and  the 
blessed  and  the  unblessed  dwell  in  a  state  of  endless  happi- 
ness, differing  only  in  degree. 

While  thus,  in  his  notion  of  the  final  redemption  even  of 
the  demons  and  the  damned,  he  revived  one  of  the  heresies  of 
Origen,  his  assertion  of  the  power  of  the  human  will,  and  his 
denial  of  the  corruption  of  human  nature,  betrayed  a  coinci- 
dence between  his  creed  and  that  of  the  heretic  Pelagius, 
which  he  in  vain  endeavoured,  by  logical  subtleties,  to  disguise. 
He  had,  in  fact,  gathered  from  almost  every  heresy  some  ma- 
terials for  his  philosophy,  and  his  philosophy,  in  turn,  lent 
vigour  and  animation  to  effete  heresy. 

Besides  the  labours  of  this  ingenious  man  which  I  have  here 
mentioned,  he  entered  likewise  into  the  controversy  raised,  at 
this  period,  respecting  the  manner  in  which  the  body  and  blood 

*  "  Scott  Erigene  avait  puise  dans  son  commerce  (avec  les  6crits  da  Denis 
I'Areopagite)  una  foule  d'id6es  Alexandrines  qu'il  a  d6velopp6es  dans  ses 
deux  ouvrages  originaux,  I'un  sur  la  Predestination  et  la  Grace,  I'autre  sur 
la  Division  de  Etres.  Ces  idees,  par  leur  analogic  avec  celles  de  S.  Augustin, 
entr6rent  facilement  dans  la  circulation,  et  grosserent  le  tresor  de  la  scholas- 
tique."— Cousin,  ut  supra. 

It  vv'ill  be  seen  that  the  mistake  into  which  the  learned  professor  has  here 
fallen,  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  his  not  having  made  himself  acquainted 
with  the  works  of  which  he  speaks  ;  as  it  is  not  possible  for  two  systems  to 
have  less  analogy  with  each  other  than  those  of  St.  Augustine  and  John 
Erigena  upon  the  subject  of  predestination. 


260  HISTORY    OP    IRELAND. 

of  Christ  are  present  in  the  sacrament.  The  treatise  written 
by  him  upon  the  subject  no  longer  exists ;  but  the  general 
opinion  is,  that  he  denied  the  Real  Presence  ;  and  the  natural 
bent  of  his  mind  to  run  counter  to  prevailing  and  sanctioned 
opinions,  renders  it  most  probable  that  such  was  his  view  of 
this  now,  for  the  first  time,  controverted  mystery.  In  stating, 
however,  as  he  is  said  to  have  done,  that  the  sacrament  of  the 
Eucharist  is  not  the  "  true  body  and  true  blood,"  he  might  have 
had  reference  solely  to  the  doctrine  put  forth  then  recently  by 
Paschasius  Radbert,  who  maintained  that  the  body  present  in 
the  Eucharist  was  the  same  carnal  and  palpable  body  which 
was  bora  of  the  Virgin,  which  suffered  on  the  cross,  and  rose 
from  the  dead  ;  whereas  the  belief  of  the  Catholic  church,  on 
this  point  of  doctrine,  has  always  been,  that  the  body  of  Christ 
is  under  the  symbols  not  corporeally  or  carnally,  but  in  a  spirit- 
ual manner.* 

The  stories  introduced  into  the  general  accounts  of  John 
Erigena,  of  his  removing  to  England  on  the  death  of  his 
patron,  Charles  the  Bald,  and  acquiring  a  new  Maecenas  in 
the  person  of  Alfred,  the  great  English  king,  are  all  mani- 
festly fables ;  arising  out  of  a  confusion,  of  which  William  of 
Malmesbury  and  others  availed  themselves,  between  our  Irish 
John — who,  it  is  evident,  remained  in  France  till  he  died, — 
and  a  monk  from  Saxony,  much  patronized  by  Alfred,  called 
John  of  Atheling.f  At  what  period  Erigena  died  is  not  clearly 
ascertained ;  but  it  is  concluded  that  his  death  must  have  oc- 
curred before  the  year  875,  as  a  letter  written  in  that  year  by 
Anastasius,  the  Bibliothecarian,  speaks  of  him  in  the  past 
tense,  as  if  then  dead.f 

The  space  devoted  here  to  the  account  of  this  extraordinary 

*  Thus  explained,  in  perfect  consonance,  as  he  says,  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  Council  of  Trent,  by  the  celebrated  missiionary,  Veron  : — "  Ergo, 
corpus  Christi,  seu  Christus,  est  in  symbolis  spirituali  inodo  seu  spiritualiter 
et  non  corporali  seu  carnali,  ncc  corporaliter  seu  carnaliter."— iic^u/a.  Ftd. 
Cathol.  c.  ii.  sect.  11. 

t  The  antiquary  Leland,  though  following  the  popular  error  in  numbering 
John  Scotus  among  those  learned  men  who  adorned  the  court  of  Alfred,  yet 
expressly  distinguishes  him  from  that  Saxon  monk  with  whom  Mr.  Turner, 
among  others,  has  strangely  confounded  him :— "  Joannem  monachura  et 
Saxonia  transmarina  oriundum,  Joannem  Scotum  qui  Dionysii  hierarchiam 
interpretatus  est,  viros  extra  qutestionem  doctissimos,  in  pretio  et  familiari- 
tate  habuit."— LeZand.  Commentar.  cap.  115. 

X  This  long  and  curious  letter  may  be  found  in  Usher's  Sylloge.  "  It  is 
wonderful,"  says  the  Bibliothecarian,  "  how  that  barbarous  man  (who,  placed 
at  the  extremity  of  the  world,  might,  in  proportion  as  he  was  remote  from 
the  rest  of  mankind,  be  supposed  to  be  unacquainted  with  other  languages,) 
was  able  to  comprehend  such  deep  things,  and  to  render  them  in  another 
tongue.  I  mean  John  Scotigena,  whom  I  have  heard  spoken  of  as  a  holy 
man  in  every  respect." 


MACARIUS.  261 

person*  will  hardly,  I  think,  be  deemed  more  than  it  deserves ; 
since,  in  addition  to  the  honour  derived  to  his  country  from  the 
immense  European  reputation  which  he  acquired,  he  appears 
to  have  been,  in  the  whole  assemblage  of  his  qualities,  intel- 
lectual and  social,  a  perfect  representative  of  the  genuine 
Irish  character,  in  all  its  various  and  versatile  combinations. 
Combining  humour  and  imagination  with  powers  of  shrewd 
and  deep  reasoning, — the  sparkle  upon  the  surface  as  vvell  as 
the  mine  beneath, — he  yet  lavished  both  these  gifts  impru- 
dently, exhibiting  on  all  subjects  almost  every  power  but  that 
of  discretion.  His  life,  in  its  social  relations,  seems  to  have 
been  marked  by  the  same  characteristic  anomalies;  for  while 
the  simplicity  of  his  mind  and  manner,  and  the  festive  play  of 
his  wit,  endeared  him  to  private  friends,  the  daring  heterodoxy 
of  his  written  opinions  alarmed  and  alienated  the  public,  and 
rendered  him  at  least  as  much  feared  as  admired. 

Another  Irish  philosopher,  named  Macarius,  who  flourished 
in  France  about  this  period,  is  supposed  by  some  writers  to 
have  preceded  the  time  of  Erigena,  but,  more  probably,  was 
either  his  contemporary,  or  came  soon  after  him,  as  the  doc- 
trine promulgated  in  a  treatise  ascribed  to  his  pen,  that 
"  there  is  but  one  soul  in  all  mankind,"  had  clearly  its  origin  in 
the  emanative  system  of  that  mystic  school  of  philosophy  with 
which  the  translator  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  had,  for  the  first 
time,  made  the  Western  Church  acquainted. 

*  I  cannot  resist,  tl)  >  desire  of  adding  to  the  other  notices  of  this  Irish 
scholar  the  following,  from  an  eminent  German  writer  :— "  On  place  dans  un 
ordre  beaucoup  plus  61eve  Jean  Scot,  ne  en  Irlande,  (de  la  son  surnom  d'Eri- 
gene)  homme  fort  lettr6,  esprit  philosophique  et  independant,  dont  on  ignore 

quelles  furent  les  resources  pour  atteindre  a  cette  superiority On  peut 

regarder  comme  des  phenomenes  singuliers  pour  son  siecle  ses  connoissances 
en  latin  et  en  grec  (quelques-uns  y  joignent  la  langue  araoe)  son  amour  pour 
la  philosophie  d'Anstote,  sa  traduction,  si  precieuse  en  Occident,  de  Denys 
r  Areopagite,  ses  opinions  franches  et  6clair6es  dans  les  disputes  de  son  temps 
sur  la  predestination  et  I'eucharistie,  sa  maniere  de  consid6rer  la  philoso- 
phie comme  la  science  des  principes  de  toute  chose,  science  qui  ne  peut 
etre  distinguee  de  la  religion,  et  son  systeme  philosophique  renouvel6  du 
n6oplatonisme,  ou  domine  ce  principe,— Dieu  est  la  substance  de  toutes 
choses,  elles  d6coulent  de  la  plenitude  de  son  etre,  et  retournent  enfin  a 
lui.  Tous  ces  r6sultats  si  extraordinaires  d'6tudes  laborieuses,  et  d'une 
pens6e  forte  et  originale,  eussent  pu  faire  plus  de  bien,  si  leur  influence 
n'eiit  ete  arret6e  par  les  proscriptions  de  rorthodoxie."— yerenemon,  Manuel 
de  VHist.  de  la  Phil. 


262  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

STATE  OF   LEARNING   AND  THE  ARTS   IN   IRELAND   DURING   THE 
SAME   PERIOD. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  of  ihis  volume  there  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  reader  most  of  the  evidence,  as  well  incidental 
as  direct,  suggested  by  various  writers,  in  support  of  the  be- 
lief, that  the  use  of  letters  was  known  to  the  pagan  Irish.  But, 
perhaps,  one  of  the  most  convincing  proofs,  that  they  were  at 
least  acquainted  with  this  gift  before  the  time  when  St.  Patrick 
introduced  among  them  the  Christian  doctrine,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  immediate  display  of  mind  and  talent  which  the  impulse 
of  that  great  event  produced, — in  the  rapidity  with  which  they 
at  once  started  forth  as  scholars  and  missionaries,  and  became, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  instructors  of  all  Europe,  at  a  time  when, 
according  to  some,  they  were  but  rude  learners  themselves. 
It  is,  indeed,  far  easier  to  believe — what  there  is  besides  such 
strong  evidence  to  prove — that  the  elements  of  learning  were 
already  known  to  them  when  St.  Patrick  and  hhi  brother  mis- 
sionaries arrived,  than  that  the  seeds  then  for  the  first  time 
sown  should  have  burst  forth  in  so  rich  and  sudden  a  harvest. 

To  the  question, — Where,  then,  are  any  of  the  writings  of 
those  pagan  times  1  where  the  tablets,  the  manuscripts,  even 
pretending  to  be  of  so  ancient  a  date  1 — it  can  only  be  answer- 
ed, that  the  argument  involved  in  this  question  would  apply 
with  equal  force  to  the  two  or  three  centuries  succeeding  the 
time  of  St.  Patrick,  when,  as  all  know,  not  merely  letters,  but 
the  precious  fruits  of  those  elements,  literature  and  the  sciences, 
had  begun  to  spring  up  in  Ireland.  And  yet,  of  that  long  and 
comparatively  shining  period,  when  the  schools  of  this  country 
attracted  the  attention  of  all  Europe ;  when  the  accomplished 
Cummian  drew  from  thence  his  stores  of  erudition,  and  Co- 
lumba's  biogi-apher  acquired  in  them  his  Latin  style;  when 
Columbanus  carried  to  Gaul,  from  the  celebrated  school  of 
Banchor,  that  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  which  he  af- 
terwards displayed  in  his  writings,  and  the  acute  Virgilius 
went  forth,  enriched  with  the  various  science  which  led  him 
to  anticipate  the  discovery  of  the  sphericity  of  the  earth  ; — of 
all  that  period,  in  Ireland,  abounding  as  it  was  in  scholars  and 
writers  extraordinary  for  their  time,  not  a  single  authentic 
manuscript  now  remains ;  not  a  single  written  relic,  such  as 
ought  to  convince  that  class  of  sceptics  who  look  to  direct 


DESTRUCTION    OF    IRISH    MANUSCRIPTS.  263 

proofs  alone,  that  the  art  of  writing  even  existed  in  those  days. 
The  very  same  causes — the  constant  ravages  of  invasion  and 
the  blind  fury  of  internal  dissension* — which  occasioned  the 
destruction  and  loss  of  manuscripts  between  the  time  of  St. 
Patrick  and  the  ninth  or  tenth  century,  account  with  still 
stronger  force  for  the  disappearance  of  all  earlier  vestiges  of 
writing ;  and,  in  fact,  the  more  recent  and  scanty  at  present 
are  the  remains  of  the  acknowledged  era  of  Irish  literature, 
the  more  it  weakens  the  argument  drawn  from  the  want  of  any 
such  visible  relics  of  the  ages  preceding  it.f 

We  have  seen  that  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  Four  Gospels, 
still  extant,  is  said  to  liave  been  written  by  the  hand  of  St. 
Columbkill ;  and  to  this  copy  Dr.  O'Connor  triumphantly  re- 
fers, as  afibrding  an  irrefragable  answer  to  those  who  deny  the 
existence  of  any  Irish  manuscript  of  an  older  date  than  the 
tenth  century. I  But  the  zeal  of  this  amiable  scholar  in  the 
cause  of  his  country's  antiquities,  and  the  facility  with  which, 
on  most  points  connected  with  that  theme,  he  adopts  as  proved 
what  has  only  been  boldly  asserted,  render  even  him,  with  all 
liis  real  candour  and  learning,  not  always  a  trustworthy  wit- 
ness ;  and  the  result  of  the  researches  on  this  point,  in  Ireland, 

*  "  Nee  mirum,"  says  Ware,  in  the  dedication  prefixed  to  his  account  of 
Irish  writers ;  "nam  periisse  liquet  plurimorum  notitiam,  una  cum  multo 
maxima  operum  eorum  parte,  cum  Hibernia  nostra  seditionibus  intestinis 
oppressa,  quasi  miseriarum  diluvio  inundata  fuerit." 

Of  the  wanton  destruction  of  Irish  manuscripts  which  took  place  after 
the  invasion  of  the  English,  I  shall,  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  work,  have 
occasion  to  speak.  Many  of  these  precious  remains  were,  as  the  author  of 
Cambrensis  Eversus  tells  us,  actually  torn  up  by  boys  for  covers  of  books, 
and  by  tailors  for  measures :— "  Inter  pueros  in  ludis  literariis  ad  librorum 
sittibas,  et  inter  sartores  ad  lascinias  pro  vestium  forma  dimetiendi."  "  It 
was  till  the  time  of  James  I.,"  says  Mr.  Webb,  "  an  object  of  government  to 
discover  and  destroy  every  literary  remain  of  the  Irish,  in  order  the  more 
fully  to  eradicate  from  their  minds  every  trace  of  their  ancient  independence." 
—Analysis  of  the  Antiq.  of  Ireland. 

t  The  absurd  reasoning  of  the  opponents  of  Irish  antiquities  on  this  point 
has  been  well  exposed  by  the  English  writer  just  cited :— "  The  more  recent 
they  can  by  any  means  make  this  date,  the  greater,  in  their  opinion,  is  the 
objection  to  the  authenticity  of  Irish  history,  and  to  the  pretensions  of  the 
national  antiquarians  to  an  early  use  of  letters  among  their  countrymen." 
He  afterwards  adds : — "  If  we  possess  so  few  Irish  manuscripts,  written 
before  the  twelfth  century,  it  is  plain  that,  by  adducing  this  circumstance, 
they  the  more  clearly  ascertain  the  extent  of  those  disturbances  which  de- 
stroyed every  historical  record  prior  to  the  tenth,  and  which  must  have  been 
far  more  effectual  in  causing  to  perish  every  remain  of  the  fifth  age." — Id. 

X  After  quoting  Usher's  account  of  the  Kells  manuscript,  Dr.  O'Connor 
says  :— 

"  Ilabemus  itaque,  ex  indubitatae  fidei  scriptoribus  ad  nostra  fere  tempora 
extitisse  antiquissimos  codices,  characteribus  Hibernicis  scriptos,  qui  longo 
ante  seculum  decimum  exarati  fuere  ;  ita  ut  a  veritate  plurimum  abesse  con- 
sendi  sunt  qui  nullum  ante  seculum  X.  codicem  characteribus  Hibernicis 
Bcriptum  extare  opinantur."— /?fr,  Hib.  Script.  Ep.  J^tinr. 


264  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 


,  conni 


of  one  whose  experience  in  the  study  of  manuscripts^ 
bined  with  his  general  learning,  render  him  an  authority  of" 
no  ordinary  weight*,  is,  that  the  oldest  Irish  manuscript  which 
has  been  discovered  in  that  country,  is  the  Psalter  of  Cashe] 
written  in  the  latter  end  of  the  ninth  century. 

For  any  remains,  therefore,  of  our  vernacular  literature  b 
fore  that  period,  which  have  reached  us,  we  are  indebted 
Tigernach  and  the  annalists  preceding  him,  through  whom 
few  short  pieces  of  ancient  poetry  have  been  transmitted ;  and 
to  those  writers  of  the  tenth  century,  who,  luckily  taking  upon 
themselves  the  office  of  compilers,  have  made  us  acquaint- 
ed with  the  contents  of  many  curious  works  which,  though 
extant  in  their  times,  have  since  been  lost.  Among  the 
fragments  transmitted  through  the  annalists  are  some  dis- 
tichs  by  the  arch-poet  Dubtach,  one  of  St.  Patrick's  earliest 
converts,  the  antiquated  idiom  of  which  is  accounted,  by  Irish 
scholars,  to  be  in  itself  a  sufficient  proof  of  their  authenticity.f 
A  few  other  fragments  from  poets  of  that  period  have  been 
preserved  by  the  same  trustworthy  chronicler ;  and  it  appears 
on  the  whole  highly  probable,  that  while  abroad,  as  we  have 
seen,  such  adventurous  Irishmen  as  Pelagius  and  Cselestius 
were  entering  into  the  lists  with  the  great  champions  of  ortho- 
doxy,— while  Sedulius  was  taking  his  place  among  the  later 
Latin  classics, — there  were  also,  in  Ireland  itself,  poets,  or 
Fileas,  employing  their  native  language,  and  either  then  re- 
cently quickened  into  exertion  by  the  growing  intercourse  of 
their  country  with  the  rest  of  Europe,  or  forming  but  links, 
perhaps,  of  a  long  bardic  succession  extending  to  remote  times. 
According  as  we  descend  the  stream  of  his  Annals,  the  me- 
trical fragments  cited  by  Tigernach  become  more  numerous ; 
and  a  poet  of  the  seventh  century,  Cenfaelad,  furnishes  a  num- 
ber of  these  homely  ornaments  of  his  course.  The  singular 
fate  of  the  monarch,  Murcertach,  who,  in  the  year  534,  was 
drowned  in  a  hogshead  of  wine,  seems  to  have  formed  a  fa- 
vourite theme  with  the  poets,  as  no  less  than  three  short  pieces 
of  verse  on  this  subject  have  been  preserved  by  the  annalists, 
written  respectively  by  the  three  poets,  Cernach,  Sin,  and 
Cenfaelad.  In  these,  as  in  all  the  other  fragments  assigned  to 
that  period,  there  is  to  be  found,  as  the  learned  editor  of  the 
Irish  Chronicles  informs  us,  a  peculiar  idiom  and  structure  of 
verse,  which  denotes  them  to  be  of  the  early  date  to  which 

*  Astle,  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writing. 

t  "  Carminis  antiquitatem  indicant  phrases  jam  obsoletse,  et  a  recentiorum 
idiomate  a\ienx."—Ep.  J^unc.  cv. 


LATIN    POEMS    IN    RHYME.  265 

they  are  assigned.  It  would  appear,  indeed,  that  the  modern 
contrivance  of  rhyme,  which  is  generally  supposed  to  have  had 
a  far  other  source,  may  be  traced  to  its  origin  in  the  ancient 
rans  or  rins,  as  they  termed  their  stanzas,  of  the  Irish.  The 
able  historian  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in  referring  to  some  Latin 
verses  of  Aldhelm,  which  he  appears  to  consider  as  the  earli- 
est specimen  of  rhyme  now  extant,  professes  himself"  at  a  loss 
to  discover  whence  that  form  of  verse  could  have  been  de- 
rived.* But  already,  before  the  time  of  Aldhelm,  the  use  of 
rhyme  had  been  familiar  among  the  Irish,  as  well  in  their  ver- 
nacular verses  as  in  those  which  they  wrote  in  Latin.  Not  to 
dwell  on  such  instances,  in  the  latter  language,  as  the  Hymns 
of  St.  Columba,  respecting  whose  authenticity  there  may  be 
some  question,  aa  example  of  Latin  verses  interspersed  with 
rhyme  is  to  be  found  among  the  poems  of  St.  Columbanusf, 
which  preceded  those  of  Aldhelm  by  near  half  a  century.  So 
far  back,  indeed,  as  the  fifth  century,  another  Irish  poet,  Sedu- 
lius,  had,  in  some  of  the  verses  of  his  well-known  hymn  on  tiie 
liife  of  Christ,  left  a  specimen  of  much  the  same  sort  of  rhyme.  | 
As  practised  most  generally,  in  their  own  language,  by  the 
Irish,  this  method  consisted  in  rhyming  at  every  hemistich,  or, 
in  other  words,  making  the  syllable  in  the  middle  of  the  line 
rhyme  to  that  of  the  end ;  much  in  the  manner  of  those  verses 
called,  in  the  twelfth  century.  Leonine,  from  the  name  of  the 
writer  who  had  best  succeeded  in  them.     According  to  this 

*  "  Here,  then,"  says  Mr.  Turner,  "  is  an  example  of  rhyme  in  an  author 
who  lived  before  the  year  700,  and  he  was  an  Anglo-Saxon".    Whence  did  he 
derive  it  ?    Not  from  the  Arabs :  they  had  not  yet  reached  Europe." 
t  Beginning, 

"  Mundus  jste  transit  et  quotidie  decrescit : 
Nemo  vivens  manebit,  nulhis  vivus  remansit." 
Though  the  rhymes,  or  coincident  sounds,  occur  thus,  in  general,  on  the 
final  syllable,  there  are  instances  throughout  the  poem  of  complete  double 
rhymes.     As,  for  instance, 

"  Dilexerunt  tenebras  tetras  magis  quam  lucem  ; 
Imitari  contemnunt  vitje  Dominum  Ducem, 
Velut  in  somnis  regnent,  una  hora  Itetantur, 
Sed  jpterna  tormenta  adhuc  illis  parantur." 
I  The  following  lines  from  this  hymn  will  afford  a  specimen  of  tlje  Irish 
method  of  rhyming  : — 

"  A  solis  ortus  cardiwe,  ad  usque  terrce  limitewi, 
Christum  canamus  principcm— natum  Maria  virginc." 
But  it  is  still  more  correctly  exemplified  in  a  hymn  in  honour  of  St,  Bngid, 
MTitten,  as  some  say,  by  Columbkill ;  but,  according  to  others,  by  St.  Ultan, 
of  Ardbraccan.    See  Usher,  Eccles.  Primord.  963. 

"Christum  in  nostra  insula— qua;  vocatur  Hibernia, 
Ostensus  est  hominiftMs— maxirais  mir-abilidw*,  &c. 

Vol.  I.  23 


266  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

"  art  of  the  Irish*,"  as  it  was  styled,  most  of  the  distichs  pre- ' 
served  by  Tigernach  from  the  old  poets  were  constructed ;  and 
it  is  plain  that  Aldhelm,  whose  instructor,  Maidulph,  was  a  na- 
tive of  Ireland,  must  have  derived  his  knowledge  of  this,  a« 
well  as  of  all  other  literary  accomplishments  of  that  day,  from ' 
the  lips  of  his  learned  master.    How  nearly  bordering  on  jeal- ! 
ousy  was  his  own  admiration  of  the  schools  of  the  Irish  has 
been  seen  in  the  sarcastic  letter  addressed  by  him  to  Eaghfrid, 
who  had  just  returned  from  a  course  of  six  years'  study  in  that 
country,  overflowing,  as  it  would  appear,  with  gratitude  and 
praise. 

In  its  infant  state,  poetry  has  been  seldom  separated  from 
music ;  and  it  is  probable  that  most  of  the  stanzas  cited  by  the 
annalists  were  meant  originally  to  be  associated  with  song. 
Of  some  of  the  juvenile  works  of  St.  Columbanus  we  are  told, 
that  they  were  "  worthy  of  being  sungf ;"  and  a  scene  brought 
vividly,  in  a  few  words,  before  our  eyes,  by  the  Irish  biographer 
of  Columba,  represents  that  holy  man  as  sitting,  along  with 
his  brethren,  upon  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  lake  Kee|,  while 
among  them  was  a  poet  skilled,  we  are  told,  in  modulating 
song  to  verse,  "  after  the  manner  of  his  art."$  That  it  was  to 
the  accompaniment  of  a  stringed  instrument,  called  the  Cruit, 
they  performed  these  songs  or  chants,  appears  to  be  the  most 
general  opinion.  In  some  distichs  on  the  death  of  Columba, 
preserved  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Mastersj],  we  find  mention 

*  From  the  following  account  of  the  metrical  structure  of  Irish  verse,  it 
will  be  seen  that  it  was  peculiarly  such  as  a  people  of  strong  musical  feeling 
(and  with  whom  the  music  was  the  chief  object)  would  be  likely  to  invent 
and  practise : — 

"  The  rhythm  consists  in  an  equal  distance  of  intervals,  and  similar  ter- 
minations, each  line  being  divisible  into  two,  that  it  may  be  more  easily 
accommodated  to  the  voice  and  the  music  of  the  bards.  It  is  not  formed  by 
the  nice  collocation  of  long  and  short  syllables,  but  by  a  certain  harmonic 
rhythm,  adjusted  to  the  voice  of  song  by  the  position  of  words  which  touch 
the  heart  and  assist  the  memory." — Essay  by  Doctor  Drummond,  Trans,  of 
Royal  Irish  .Bead.  vol.  xvi. 

t  "  Ad  canendum  digna,"— so  pronounced  by  his  biographer  Jonas. 

\  In  the  county  of  Roscommon. 

§  Alio  in  tempore  S.  Columba,  cum  juxta  stagnum  Cei,  propo  ostium 
fliiminis  quod  Latine  Bos  dicitur  (i.  e.  the  Boyle  river)  die  aliqua  cum  fratri- 
bus  sederet,  quidam  ad  eos  Scoticus  poeta  devenit.  Q,ui  cum  recessisset, 
Fratres  ad  Sanctum,  cur,  inquiunt,  ali(iuod  ex  more  sua3  artis,  canticum  non 
postulasti  modulabiliter  decantari. — Jidamnati,  lib.  i.  c.  42. 

(I  Ad  ann.  593.  W^ritten  by  Dalian  Feargall,  and  thus  translated  by  Dr. 
O'Connor : — 

Est  medicina  medici  absque  remedio— «st  Dei  decretum  timor  cum  moerore. 
Est  carmen  cum  cythara  sine  gaudio— sonus  sequens  nostrum  Ducem  ad  se- 
pulchrum. 


IRISH  MUSIC.  267 

of  this  kind  of  harp  *  in  rather  a  touching  passage : — "  Like  a 
song  of  the  cruit  without  joy,  is  the  sound  that  follows  our 
master  to  the  tomb ;"  and  its  common  use  in  the  eighth  century, 
as  an  accompaniment  to  the  voice,  may  be  implied  from  Bede's 
account  of  the  religious  poet  Ceadmon,  who,  in  order  to  avoid 
taking  a  part  in  the  light  songs  of  society,  always  rose,  as  he 
tells  us,  from  table  when  the  harp  was  sent  round,  and  it  came 
to  his  turn  to  sing  and  play.  The  Italians,  who  are  known  to 
have  been  in  possession  of  the  harp  before  the  time  of  Dante, 
are,  by  a  learned  musician  of  their  own  country,  Galilei,  said 
to  have  derived  it  from  Ireland ;  the  instrument,  according  to 
his  account,  being  no  other  than  a  cithara  with  many  strings, 
and  having,  at  the  time  when  he  wrote,  four  octaves  and  a  tone 
in  compass. 

How  little  music,  though  so  powerful  in  its  influence  on  the 
feelings,  either  springs  from,  or  is  dependent  upon,  intellect, 
appears  from  the  fact,  that  some  of  the  most  exquisite  effusions 
of  this  art  have  had  their  origin  among  the  simplest  and  most 
uncultivated  people ;  nor  can  all  that  taste  and  science  bring 
aflerwards  to  the  task  do  more,  in  general,  than  diversify,  by 
new  combinations,  those  first  wild  strains  of  gaiety  or  passion 
into  which  nature  had  infused  her  original  inspiration.  In 
Greece  the  sweetness  of  the  ancient  music  had  already  been 
lost,  when  all  the  other  arts  were  but  on  their  way  to  perfec- 
tionf ;  and  from  the  account  given  by  Giraldus  Cambrensis| 

*  Of  this  instrument,  the  harp,  the  Irish  are  said  to  have  had  four  different 
species  ;  the  clarseach,  the  keirnine,  the  cronar  cruit,  and  the  creamtheine 
cruit ;  for  all  of  which  see  W^alker,  Hist.  Mem.  of  Irish  Bards,  Beauford,  ihid., 
Appendix,  and  Ledwich's  Antiquities.  What  Montfaucon,  however,  says  of 
the  different  names  given  to  the  lyre,  among  the  ancients,  may  also,  perhaps, 
be  applicable  here :— "  Among  this  great  diversity  I  cannot  but  think  the 
same  instrument  must  often  be  signified  by  different  names." 

t  See  Anacharsis,  chap.  27.  notes  v.  vii.  "  It  is  remarkable,"  says  Wood, 
"  that  the  old  chaste  Greek  melody  was  lost  in  refinement  before  their  other 
arts  had  acquired  perfection."— £ssay  on  Homer. 

X  Topograph.  Dist.  3.  c.  11.  This  curious  passage,  which  appears,  though 
confusedly,  even  to  imply  that  the  Irish  were  acquainted  with  counterpoint, 
is  prefaced  by  a  declaration  that  in  their  music  alone  does  he  find  any  thing 
to  commend  in  that  people  ;— "  In  musicis  solum  instrumentis  commenda- 
bilem  invenio  gentis  istfe  diligentiam."  The  passage  in  question  is  thus 
translated  in  Mr.  Walker's  Hist.  Mem.  of  the  Irish  Bards:—"  It  is  wonderful 
how,  in  such  precipitate  rapidity  of  the  fingers,  the  musical  proportions  are 
preserved  ;  and  by  their  art,  faultless  throughout,  in  the  midst  of  their  coin- 
plicated  modulations,  and  most  intricate  arrangement  of  notes,  by  a  rapidi^ 
so  sweet,  a  regularity  so  irregular,  a  concord  so  discordant,  the  melody  is 
rendered  harmonious  and  perfect,  whether  the  chords  of  the  diatesseron  or 
diapente  are  struck  together  ;  yet  they  always  begin  in  a  soft  mood,  and  end 
in  the  same,  that  all  may  be  perfect  in  the  sweetness  of  delicious  sounds. 
They  enter  on,  and  again  leave,  their  modulations  with  so  much  subtilty, 
and  the  tinglings  of  the  small  strings  sport  with  so  much  freedom,  under  the 
deep  notes  of  the  bass,"  &c.  &c. 


268  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

of  the  Irish  harpers  of  the  twelfth  century*,  it  may  be  inferred 
that  the  melodies  of  the  country,  at  the  earlier  period  of  which 
we  are  speakmg,  was  in  some  degree  like  the  first  music  of 
the  infant  age  of  Greece,  and  partook  of  the  freshness  of  that 
morning  of  mind  and  hope  which  was  then  awakening  around 
them. 

With  respect  to  the  structure  of  the  ancient  Irish  harp, 
there  does  not  appear  to  have  been  any  thing  accurately  ascer- 
tained ;  but,  from  that  retentiveness  of  all  belonging  to  the 
past  whicJi  we  have  shown  to  have  characterized  this  people, 
it  appears  most  probable  that  their  favourite  instrument  was 
kept  sacredly  unaltered ;  and  remained  the  same  perhaps  in 
later  times,  when  it  charmed  the  ears  of  English  poets  and 
philosophers!,  as  when  it  had  been  modulated  by  the  bard  Cro- 
nan,  in  the  sixth  century,  upon  the  banks  of  the  lake  Kee. 

It  would  appear  that  the  church  music,  likewise,  of  the  Irish 
enjoyed  no  inconsiderable  repute  in  the  seventh  century,  as  we 
find  Gertrude,  the  daughter  of  the  potent  Maire  du  Palais, 
Pepin,  sending  to  Ireland  for  persons  qualified  to  instruct  the 
nuns  of  the  abbey  of  Nivelle  in  psalmody| ;  and  the  great  mo- 
nastery of  Bangor,  or  Benchoir,  near  Carrickfergus,  is  sup- 
posed, by  Ware,  to  have  derived  its  name  from  the  White 

"  Mirum  quod  in  tanta  tarn  praecipiti  digitorum  capacitate  niusica  servatur 
proportio :  et  arte  per  omnia  indenmi  inter  crispatos  modules,  organaque 
multipliciter  intricata,  tarn  suavi  velocitate,  tarn  dispari  paritate,  tarn  dis- 
cordi  concordia  consona  redditur  et  complefur  melodia,  seu  diatesseron  seu 
diapente  chordffi  concrepent.  Semper  tamen  ab  molli  incipiunt  et  in  idem 
redeunt,  ul  cuncta  sub  jucundai  sonoritatis  dulcedine  compleantur.  Tam 
subtiliter  modules  intrant  et  exeunt;  sicque  sub  obtuso  grossioris  chordae 
sonitu,  gracilium  tinnitus  licentiua  ludunt,"  &c.  &;c. — Topograph.  Hibern. 
dist.  3.  cap.  11. 

*  "  Even  so  late  as  the  eleventh  century,"  says  Warton,  "  the  practice 
continued  among  the  Welsh  bards  of  receiving  instructions  in  the  Bardic 
profession  from  Irela.nd"— Hist,  of  English  Poetry. 

t  Alluding  to  such  tributes  as  the  following  :— 
"  The  Irish  I  admire 
And  still  cleave  to  that  lyre, 

As  our  muse's  mother ; 
And  think,  till  I  expire, 

Apollo's  such  another."  Drayton. 

"  The  harp,"  says  Bacon,  "  hath  the  concave  not  along  the  strings,  but 
across  the  strings ;  and  no  harp  hath  the  sound  so  melting  and  prolonged  as 
the  Irish  harp."— 5///w.  Sylvar.  See  also  Selden's  Notes  on  Drayton's  Poly- 
olbion. 

The  following  is  from  Evelyn's  Journal :— "  Came  to  see  my  old  acquaint- 
ance, and  the  most  incomparable  player  on  the  Irish  harp,  Mr.  Clarke,  after 
his  travels Such  music  before  or  since  did  I  never  hear,  that  instru- 
ment being  neglected  for  its  extraordinary  difficulty ;  but  in  my  judgment 
far  superior  to  the  lute  itself,  or  whatever  speaks  with  strings." 

t  "  Pour  instruire  la  communaute  dans  la  chant  des  Pseaumes  et  la  medi- 
tation des  choses  saintes."— Quoted  from  Fleury  by  D' Alton,  Essay,  216. 


RUDE    ARCHITECTURE.  269 

Choir  which  belonged  to  it.*  A  certain  sect  of  antiquarians, 
whose  favourite  object  it  is  to  prove  that  the  Irish  church  was 
in  no  respect  connected  with  Rome,  have  imagined  some  mode 
by  which,  through  the  medium  of  Asiatic  missionaries,  her 
Chant  or  Psalmody  might  have  been  derived  to  her  directly 
from  the  Greeks.  But  their  whole  hypothesis  is  shown  to  be 
a  train  of  mere  gratuitous  assumption ;  and  it  is  little  doubted 
that,  before  the  introduction  of  the  Latin,  or  Gregorian  Chant, 
by  St.  Malachy,  which  took  place  in  the  twelfth  century,  the 
style  of  music  followed  by  the  Irish,  in  their  church  service, 
was  that  which  had  been  introduced  by  St.  Patrick  and  his 
companions  from  Gaul.f 

The  religious  zeal  which,  at  this  period,  covered  the  whole 
island  with  monasteries  and  churches,  had  not,  in  the  materials 
at  least  of  architecture,  introduced  any  change  or  improve- 
ment. Stone  structures  were  still  unknown ;  and  the  forest 
of  oak  which,  from  old  heathen  associations,  had  suggested  the 
site  of  the  church,  furnished  also  the  rude  material  of  which  it 
was  constructed.  In  some  few  instances  these  wooden  edifices 
were  encircled  by  an  inclosure  of  stone,  called  a  casiol,  like 
that  which  Bede  describes  as  surrounding  a  chapel  erected  on 
Holy  Island  by  St.  Cuthbert,  The  first  churches,  indeed,  of 
Northumbria  were  all  constructed  of  wood ;  and  that  of  St. 
Finan,  the  Irish  bishop,  at  Lindisfarn,  was,  as  we  are  told,  built 
after  "  the  fashion  of  his  country,  not  of  stone,  but  of  split  oak, 
and  covered  with  reeds."| 

When  such  was  the  rude  simplicity  of  their  ecclesiastical 
architecture,  it  may  be  concluded  that  their  dwellings  were 
still  more  homely  and  frail ;  and  in  this,  as  in  most  of  the  other 
arts  of  life,  their  slow  progress  may  be  ascribed  mainly  to  their 
civil  institutions.  Where  possessions  were  all  temporary,  the 
natural  motive  to  build  durably  was  wanting.  Instead  of  being 
brought  together,  too,  in  cities,  where  emulation  and  mutual 
interchange  of  mind  would  have  been  sure  to  lead  to  improve- 
ment, the  separate  clans  of  the  Irish  sat  down,  each  in  its  he- 
reditary canton,  seldom  meeting  but  in  the  field,  as  fellow- 
combatants,  or  as  foes.  In  this  respect,  the  religious  zeal 
which  now  universally  prevailed  supplied,  in  some  degree,  the 
place  of  industry  and  commerce ;  and,  among  the  many  civi- 

*  According  to  O'Halloran  and  Dr.  O'Connor,  the  name  Benn-Choir  signi- 
fies Sweet  Choir. 

t  See,  on  this  subject,  Lanigan,  chap.  xxvi.  note  46. 

I  In  insula  Lindisfarnensi  fecit  ecclesiam  episcopali  sede  congruam,  quam 
tamen  more  Scotorum  non  de  lapide  sed  de  robore  secto  totam  composuit  at- 
que  arundine  texit.— Bede,  lib.  3.  cap.  25 

23* 


270  HISTOKY    OF    IRELAND.  ^^M 

lizing  eftects  of  the  monastic  institutions,  it  was  not  the  least 
useful  thg,t,  wherever  established,  they  were  the  means  of  at- 
tracting" multitudes  around  them,  and,  by  examples  of  charity 
and  self-denial,  inspiring  them  with  better  motives  than  those 
of  clanship  for  mutual  dependence  and  concert.  The  commu- 
nity collected,  by  degrees,  around  the  Oak  of  St.  Brigid,  at 
Kildare,  grew  at  length  into  a  large  and  flourishing  town ;  and 
even  the  solitary  cell  of  St.  Kevin,  among  the  mountains,  drew 
around  it,  by  degrees,  such  a  multitude  of  dwellings  as,  in  the 
course  of  time,  to  form  a  holy  city  in  the  wilderness.'*' 

With  regard  to  our  evidence  of  the  state  of  agriculture,  at 
this  period,  the  language  employed,  on  such  subjects,  in  the 
Lives  of  the  Saints,  our  only  sources  of  information,  is  too 
vague  and  general  to  afford  any  certain  knowledge.  The  tend- 
ing of  sheep  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  task  assigned  to  St. 
Patrick  during  liis  servitude ;  and  it  is,  indeed,  most  probable 
that  pasturage  was  then,  as  it  continued  for  many  centuries 
after,  the  chief  employment  of  the  people. f  The  memorable 
"  Earn,"  however,  of  the  apostle's  friend  Dicho,  implies  ob- 
viously the  practice  of  hoarding  grain;  and  from  an  account 
given,  in  the  annals  for  the  year  650,  of  a  murder  which  took 
place  in  "the  bakehouse  of  a  mill,"  it  would  appear  that 
water-mills  J  had  already  been  brought  into  use  at  that  time.^ 
There  is,  indeed,  mention  made,  in  one  of  the  Brehon  Lawsjl, 
though  of  what  period  ceoms  uncertain,  both  of  carpenters  and 
millwrights. 

Another  of  these  Irish  Laws,  said  to  be  of  great  antiquity, 
shows  that  the  practice  of  irrigating  lands  must  have  been  in 
use  when  it  was  enacted :  as  it  thus  regulates  the  common 

*  "  In  ipso  loco  dara  et  religiosa  civitas  in  honore  S.  Coemgeni  (Kevin) 
crevit  quae  nomine  prajdiclaa  vallis  in  qua  ipsa  est  Gleandaloch  vocatur." — 
Quoted  by  Usher,  from  a  life  of  St.  Kevin,  Eccles.  Primord.  956. 

t  It  was  for  this  reason  that  tliey  appeared  to  Giraldus  as  not  yet  in  his 
time  emerged  from  the  pastoral  life:  — '•  Gens  agriculture  labores  aspernans, 
a  primo  pastoralis  vitee  vivendi  modo  non  recedens."  That  Spenser  held  it 
to  be  no  less  a  cause  than  a  sign  of  the  want  of  civilization,  appears  from 
the  following  strong  sentences :— "  To  say  truth,  though  Ireland  be  by  na- 
ture accounted  a  great  soil  of  pasture,  yet  had  I  rather  have  fewer  cows 
kept,  and  men  better  mannered,  than  to  have  such  huge  increase  of  cattle, 
and  no  increase  of  good  conditions.  I  would,  therefore,  wish  that  there 
were  some  ordinances  made  amongst  them,  that  whosoever  keepeth  twenty 
kine  should  keep  a  plough  going  ;  for,  otherwise,  all  men  would  fall  to  pas- 
turage, and  none  to  husbandry." — F^iew  of  the  State  of  Ireland. 

X  Annal.  iv.  Mag.  ad  ann.  647.— See  Dr.  O'Connor's  note  on  the  passage. 

§  The  introduction  of  water-mills  into  the  British  Isles  is  attributed,  by 
Whitaker,  to  the  Romans ;  and  from  hence,  he  says,  this  sort  of  mill  is  called 
Melin  in  the  British,  and  Muilan  or  Muiland  in  the  Irish. 

II  Collectan.  Hibern.  No.  1. 


AGRICULTURE  AND  THE  ARTS.         271 

right  in  the  water :— *'  According  to  the  Fenechas,  the  com- 
mon right  of  drawn  water  belongs  to  the  land  from  which  it  is 
drawn.  It  is  therefore  that  all  require  that  it  shall  run  freely 
the  first  day  over  the  entire  land.  For  right  in  the  water  be- 
longs to  none  but  in  the  land  from  which  it  is  drawn."* 

The  biographer  of  St.  Columba,  besides  employing  the  terms 
ploughing  and  sowing,  mentions  as  the  result,  on  one  occasion, 
of  tlie  abbot's  prayers  and  intercessions,  that  they  had  an 
abundant  harvest  The  discipline  of  the  monks,  enjoining 
herbs  and  pulsef  as  their  chief  food,  would  lead  to  the  culture 
of  such  productions  in  their  gardens.  The  mention  of  honey- 
comb, too,  as  part  of  the  monastic  diet,  concurs,  with  some  cu- 
rious early  laws  on  the  subject|,  to  prove  their  careful  attention 
to  the  rearing  of  bees;  and  not  only  apple-trees,  but  even 
vines,  are  said  to  have  been  cultivated  by  the  inmates  of  the 
monasteries. 

Of  the  skill  of  the  workers  in  various  metals  at  this  period, 
as  well  as  of  the  lapidaries  and  painters,  we  are  told  wonders 
by  the  hagiologists,  who  expatiate  at  length  on  the  staff  of  St. 
Patrick,  covered  with  gold  and  precious  stones,  the  tomb  of  St. 
Brigid  at  Kildare,  surmounted  by  crowns  of  gold  and  silver, 
and  the  walls  of  the  church  at  the  same  place,  adorned  with 
holy  paintings.  But  it  is  plain  that  all  this  luxury  of  religious 
ornament,  as  well  as  those  richly  illuminated  manuscripts 
which  Dr.  O'Connor  and  others  have  described,  must  all  be 
referred  to  a  somewhat  later  period. 

Of  the  use  of  war-chariots  among  the  Irish^,  in  the  same 
manner  as  among  the  Britons  and  the  Greeks,  some  notice  has 
already  been  taken ;  and  this  sort  of  vehicle  was  employed 
also  by  the  ancient  Irish  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  travelling. 
The  self-devotion  of  St.  Patrick's  charioteer  has  made  hiin 
memorable  in  our  history ;  and  both  St.  Brigid  and  Columba 
performed  their  progresses,  we  are  told,  in  the  same  sort  of 

*  O'Reilly  on  the  Brehon  Laws,  Trans.  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xiv. 

t  "  Cibus  sit  villis  et  vespertinus  monachorum,  satietatem  fugiens  et  potus 
ebrietatem,  ut  et  sustineat  et  non  noceat.  Olera,  legumina,  farinae  aquis 
mixtffi,"  &c. — Columban.  Reg.  cap.  3. 

t  "  Whoever  plunders  or  steals  bees  from  out  a  garden  or  fort  is  subject  to 
a  like  penalty  as  if  he  steal  them  out  of  a  habitation,  for  these  are  ordained 
of  equal  penalty  by  law."  Again,  "  Bees  in  an  inclosure,  or  fort,  and  in  a 
garden,  are  of  the  same  account  (as  to  property,  penalty,  &c.)  as  the  wealth, 
or  substance  of  a  habitation."  Extracted  from  inedited  Brehon  Laws,  in  an 
Essay  on  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Gardening  in  Ireland,  by  J.  C.  Walker. 
See  Antholog.  Hibern.,  vol.  i.,  and  Trans.  Royal  Acad.  vol.  iv. 

§  The  king  of  the  Irish  Crutheni,  or  Picts,  is  described  by  Adamnan  as 
escaping  from  the  field  Of  battle  in  a  chariot :— "  Gluemadmodum  victus  cur- 
rui  insidens  evaserit." 


272  -  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

carriage.  There  is  also  a  canon  of  the  synod  attributed  to  St. 
Patrick,  which  forbids  a  monk  to  travel  from  one  town  to  an- 
other, in  the  same  chariot  with  a  female.* 

Reference  has  been  made,  in  the  course  of  this  chapter,  to 
the  early  Brehon  Laws,  and  could  we  have  any  dependence  on 
the  date  assigned  to  such  of  these  laws  as  have  been  published, 
or  even  on  the  correctness  of  the  translations  given  of  them, 
they  would  unquestionably  be  very  important  documents.  Of 
those  published  by  Vallancey  it  has  been  pronounced,  by  a 
writer  not  over-credulousf,  that  they  bear  strong  internal 
marks  of  antiquity ;  and  while  the  comment  on  the  several 
laws  is  evidently,  we  are  told,  the  work  of  some  Christian  juris- 
consults, the  laws  themselves  wear  every  appearance  of  being 
of  ancient,  if  not  of  Pagan,  times.  No  mention  occurs  in  them 
of  foreigners,  or  of  foreign  septs,  in  Ireland.  The  regulations 
they  contain  for  the  barter  of  goods,  and  for  the  payment  of 
fines  by  cattle  and  other  commodities,  mark  a  period  when  coin 
had  not  yet  come  into  general  use ;  while  the  more  modem 
date  of  the  Comment,  it  is  said,  is  manifested  by  its  substi- 
tuting, for  such  primitive  modes  of  payment,  gold  and  silver 
taken  by  weight.  Mention  is  made  in  them,  also,  of  the  Tal- 
tine  Games  and  the  Convocation  of  the  States ;  and  it  is  for- 
bidden, under  the  pain  of  an  Eric,  to  imprison  any  person  for 
debt  during  these  meetings. 

With  the  single  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  absence  of  any 
allusion  to  foreigners,  there  is  not  one  of  these  alleged  marks  of 
antiquity  that  would  not  suit  equally  well  with  the  state  and 
condition  of  Ireland  down  to  a  period  later,  by  many  centuries, 
than  that  at  which  we  are  arrived ;  the  payment  by  cattle  and 
the  law  of  the  Eric  having  been  retained,  as  we  shall  find,  to 
a  comparatively  recent  date. 

With  respect  to  tlie  manner  in  which  the  Irish  laws  were 
delivered  down,  whether  in  writing  or  by  tradition,  there  has 
been  much  difference  of  opinion ;  and  the  poet  Spenser,  in 
general  well  informed  on  Irish  subjects,  declares  the  Brehon 
Law  to  be  "  a  rule  of  right  unwritten."  Sir  John  Davies,  too, 
asserts  that  "  its  rules  were  learned  rather  by  tradition  than  by 
reading."  This  is  evidently,  however,  an  erroneous  repre- 
sentation. Without  referring  to  the  Collections  of  Judgments, 
or  Codes  of  Laws,  which  are  said  to  have  been  compiled  under 
some  of  the  heathen  princes,  we  find,  after  the  introduction  of 
Christianity,  the  Great  Code,  or  Seanchas-More,  as  it  was 
called,  drawn  up  with  the  aid,  according  to  some  writers,  of 

Monachus  et  virgo  ...  in  uno  ciirru  a  villa  in  villam  non  discurrant. 
t  Lcland,  Hist,  of  Ireland,  Preliminary  Discourse. 


BREHON    LAWS.  273 

St.  Patrick*,  but  supposed  by  others  to  have  been  of  a  much 
later  date. 

In  the  seventh  century,  a  body  of  the  laws  of  the  country 
was  compiled  and  digested,  we  are  told,  from  the  scattered 
writings  of  former  lawyers,  by  three  learned  brothers,  the 
sons  of  O'Burechan,  of  whom  one  was  a  judge,  the  second  a 
bishop,  and  the  third  a  poet.f  The  great  number,  indeed,  of 
Irish  manuscripts  still  extant,  on  the  subject  of  the  Brelion 
Law^s,  sufficiently  refutes  the  assertion  of  Spenser  and  others, 
that  these  laws  were  delivered  down  by  tradition  alone.  In  the 
very  instance,  mentioned  by  Sir  John  Davies,  of  the  aged 
Brehon  whom  he  met  with  in  Fermanagh,  the  information 
given  reluctantly  by  this  old  man,  respecting  a  point  of  local 
law,  was  gained  by  reference  to  an  ancient  parchment  roll, 
"written  in  fair  Irish  character,"  which  the  Brehon  carried 
about  with  him  always  in  his  bosom.J  The  truth  appears  to 
be,  that  both  tradition  and  writing  were  employed  concurrently 
in  preserving  these  laws ;  the  practice  of  oral  delivery  being 
still  retained  after  the  art  of  v^nriting  them  down  was  known  ; 
and  a  custom  which  tended  much  to  perpetuate  this  mode  of 
tradition,  was  the  duty  imposed  upon  every  Filea,  or  Royal 
Poet,  to  learn  by  heart  the  Brehon  Law,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
assist  the  memory  of  the  judge. § 

On  the  whole,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  claims  to  a 
high  antiquity  of  the  numerous  remains  of  the  Brehon  Law 
that  have  come  down  to  us,  of  the  immemorial  practice  of  this 
form  of  jurisprudence  among  the  ancient  Irish,  and  of  the  fond, 
obstinate  reverence  with  which,  long  after  they  had  passed 
under  the  English  yoke,  they  still  continued  to  cling  to  it, 
there  exists  not  the  slightest  doubt.  In  the  fifth  century,  the 
Brehons  were  found  by  St.  Patrick  dispensing  their  then  an- 
cient laws  upon  the  hills;  and,  more  than  a  thousand  yearn 
after,  the  law-officers  of  Britain  found  in  the  still  revered 
Brehon  the  most  formidable  obstacle  to  their  plans. 

*  Anno  Christi  438  et  regis  Leogarii  decimo,  vetustis  corlicibus  aliisquo 
antiquis  Hibernite  monumentis  undique  conquisitis,  et  ad  unum  locum  coii- 
gregatis,  Hiberniaj  Antiquitates  et  Sanctiones  Legales"  S.  Patricii  authoritale 
repurgata;  et  conscriptae  sunt.— jinnal.  Mag.  IF. 

t  Ware's  Writers,  chap.  iv. 

I  Letter  to  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  Collectan.  vol.  i. 

§  "  In  order  to  qualify  the  Fil6,"  says  Mr.  O'Reilly,  "  for  this  important 
office,  the  rules  for  the  education  of  the  poetic  professors  required  that  every 
Dos,  or  poet  of  the  third  degree,  before  he  was  qualified  to  become  a  Cana,  or 
poet  of  the  fourth  degree,  should  repeat,  in  the  presence  of  the  king  and  the 
nobles,  the  Breitke  JVeimhidh,  i.e.  the  Law  of  the  Degrees  or  Ranks,  and 
fifty  poems  of  his  own  composition."— jE^-say  on  the  Brehon  Lawn. 


END  OF  THE  FIRST  VOLUME.  ^^^^It -^  ^'^  '     '" 

Lihrdry 


CABirVET  CYCLOPAEDIA, 

CONDUCTED  BY  THE 

REV.  DIONYSIUS  LARDNER,  LL.D.  F.R.S.  L&.E. 

M.R.I.  A.  F.L.S.  F.Z.S.  Hon.F.C.P.S.  M.  Ast.  S.  &c.  &c. 

ASSISTED  BY 

EMINENT  LITERARY  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MEN. 


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and  Goodness  of  God,  as  manifested  in  Creation.  In  1  vol.  12mo. 

"  The  volumes  before  us  are  every  way  worthy  of  their  subject.  It 
would  seem  almost  supererogatory  to  pass  any  judgment  on  the  style  of  a 
writer  so  celebrated  as  Dr.  Chalmers.  He  is  well  known  as  a  logician  not 
to  be  baffled  by  any  difficulties ;  as  one  who  boldly  grapples  with  his  theme, 
and  brings  every  energy  of  his  clear  and  nervous  intellect  into  the  field. 
No  sophistry  escapes  his  eagle  vision — no  argument  that  could  either 
enforce  or  illustrate  his  subject  is  left  untouched.  Our  literature  owes  a 
deep  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  author  of  these  admirable  volumes." — Lit.  Gaz. 

THE  HAND:  ITS  MECHANISM  AND  VITAL  ENDOW- 
MENTS,  AS  EVINCING  DESIGN.  By  Sir  Charles 
Bell,  K.  G.  H,  ;  being  Part  IV.  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises 
on  the  Power,  Wisdom,  and  Goodness  of  God,  as  manifested 
in  the  Creation.     In  one  vol.  12mo. 

"  In  the  present  treatise  it  is  a  matter  of  the  warmest  satisfaction  to  find 
an  anatomist  of  Sir  Charles  Bell's  great  eminence,  professing  his  contempt 
for  the  late  fashionable  doctrines  of  materialism  held  by  so  many  anato- 
mists, and  now  coming  forward  to  present  the  fruits  of  his  wide  researches 
and  great  ability  in  a  treatise  so  full  of  curious  and  interesting  matter, 
expressly  intended  to  prove,  by  the  examination  of  one  particular  point, 
that  design  which  is  imprest  on  all  parts  of  variotis  animals  which  in  some 
degree  answer  the  purpiose  of  the  Hand  ;  and  has  shown  that  the  hand  is 
not  the  source  of  contrivance,  nor  consequently  of  man's  superiority,  as 
some  materialists  have  raamtained. 

"  To  this  he  has  added  some  very  valuable  remarks,  showing  the  uses  of 
Pain,  and  he  has  illustrated  the  work  with  a  variety  of  the  most  admirable 
and  interesting  wood  cuts." — British  Magazine. 

ANIMAL  AND  VEGETABLE  PHYSIOLOGY,  considered  with 
reference  to  Natural  Theology.  By  Peter  Mark  Roget,  M.  D.  Being 
Treatise  five  of  the  Bridgewater  Series :  illustrated  with  numerous 
cuts. 


New  Works,  published  by  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blanchard. 


THREE  YEARS  IN  THE  PACIFIC,  including  notices  of 
Brazil,  Chili,  Bolivia,  and  Peru.  In  one  vol.  By  an  Offi- 
cer of  the  United  States'  Navy. 

"  The  work  embraces  copious  descriptions  of  the  countries  visited ;  graphic 
accounts  of  the  state  of  society ;  brief  notices  of  the  history,  state  of  the 
arts,  climate,  and  the  future  prospects  of  those  interesting  parts  of  our  conti- 
nent ;  respecting  which  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  are  supposed  to 
care  much,  but  know  so  little." 

"  Full  of  novelty  and  valuable  details.  The  American  reader  will  greatly 
add  to  his  fund  of  iaeas  concerning  South  America  by  its  perusal." — Chronicle. 

"  The  author's  graphic  abilities — the  pure  acquaintance  he  displays  with 
the  Spanish  language,  renders  his  book  at  once  pleasing  and  useful." — Gaz. 

"  Such  contributions  to  our  stock  of  ideas  and  literature,  deserve  a  warmer 
welcome  and  wider  patronage  than  the  common-place  or  extravagant  fictions 
of  the  day." — National  Gazette. 

"Much  new  and  valuable  information,  imbodied  in  excellent  language; 
there  cannot  be  a  moment's  doubt  of  its  popularity." — Jour,  of  Belles  Lettres. 

LETTERS  ON  THE  UNITED  STATES.  Letters  to  a  Gen 
tleman  in  Germany,  written  after  a  trip  from  Philadelphia 
to  Niagara,  edited  by  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  in  one  vol.  8vo. 

"  The  mingling  of  anecdote,  the  abrupt  breaks,  personal  narration,  illustrative 
comparisons,  and  general  style  of  the  work,  give  it  an  interest  that  will  ensure 
to  the  book  general  perusal— while  the  philosophical  tone  which  occasionally 
pervades  its  pages  cannot  fail  of  commending  them  to  the  approval  of  the 
reflecting." — U.  S.  Gazette. 

"  We  have  read  this  work  with  great  satisfaction  and  interest.  It  abounds 
with  characteristic  anecdotes,  graphic  descriptions,  and  principles  which  do 
honour  to  the  head  and  heart  of  the  author." — JVat.  Intelligencer. 

The  style  of  these  Letters  is,  in  general,  very  good ;  sometimes  poetical  and 
eloquent. 

"Here  is  a  well  written  series  of  Letters,  by  a  learned  German,  who  has 
lived  long  enough  among  us,  it  appears,  to  examine  the  peculiarities  of  our 
government  and  habits,  with  the  impartial  eye  of  a  philosopher." — Baltimore 
paper. 

"  This  is  a  very  agreeable  book— rambling,  sprightly,  anecdotical,  and  withal, 
interspersed  with  much  useful  and  practical  information,  and  keen  and  accurate 
observation." — JVeio  York  American. 

SKETCHES  OF  SOCIETY  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND 
IRELAND.  By  C.  S.  Stewart,  M.  A.,  Chaplain  of  the 
United  States'  Navy,  author  of"  A  Visit  to  the  South  Seas," 
"  A  Residence  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,"  &c.  In  two  vols. 
12mo. 

"  Some  of  his  sketches  are  beautiful  descriptions ;  others  are  finished  pictures. 
The  charm  of  these  volumes  consists  in  the  distinct  view  which  the  author 
gives  us  of  the  scenery,  the  country,  the  cities  and  towns,  the  aristocracy,  the 
churches,— in  one  word,  the  thousand  particulars,  which,  together,  constitute 
what  is  called  the  state  of  society."— iicZi^iotts  Telegraph. 

"  We  have  seldom  perused  a  work  with  so  pleasant  an  interest.  The  contents 
are  various  and  racy,  epistolary  transcripts  of  the  author's  mind,  published  just 
as  written,  without  revisions,  and  with  all  the  gloss  and  freshness  of  first  and 
original  impressions  about  them.    The  work  is  full  of  living  pictures." 

"  His  observations  on  men  and  manners,  in  his  description  of  the  diflferent 
scenes  to  which  his  pilgrimage  was  extended,  are  given  in  a  style  of  the  moBt 
flowing  and  attractive  kind."— A*.  Y.  Courier. 

THIRTY  YEARS'  CORRESPONDENCE,  between  John 
Jebb,  D.  D.  F.  R.  S.,  Bishop  of  Limerick,  Ardfert,  and 
Aghadoe ;  and  Alexander  Knox,  Esq.,  M.  R.  I.  A.  Edited 
by  the  Rev.  Charles  Forster,  B.  D.,  perpetual  curate  of  Ash 
next  Sandwich;  formerly,  domestic  Chaplain  to  Bishop 
Jebb.    In  two  vols.  8vo. 


New  IVorks,  piiMislied  by  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blaucliard* 


BRIDGEW^ATER  TREATISES. 


This  series  of  Treatises  is  published  under  the  following  circum- 
stances:— 

The  Right  Honorable  and  Rev.  Francis  Henry,  Earl  of  Bridge- 
water,  died  in  the  month  of  February,  1825 ;  he  directed  certain  trus- 
tees therein  named,  to  invest  in  the  pubUc  funds,  the  sum  of  eight 
thousand  pounds  sterling;  this  sum,  with  the  accruing  dividends 
thereon,  to  be  held  at  the  disposal  of  the  President,  for  the  time  being, 
of  the  Royal  Society  of  liondon,  to  be  paid  to  the  person  or  persons 
nominated  by  him.  The  Testator  farther  directed,  that  the  person  or 
persons  selected  by  the  said  President,  should  be  appointed  to  write, 
print  and  publish  one  thousand  copies  of  a  work,  on  the  Power,  Wis- 
dora,  and  Goodness  of  God,  as  manifested  in  the  Creation ;  illustra- 
ting such  work,  by  all  reasonable  arguments,  as,  for  instance,  the  va- 
riety and  formation  of  God's  creatures  in  the  Animal,  Vegetable,  and 
Mineral  Kingdoms ;  the  effect  of  digestion,  and,  thereby,  of  conver- 
sion ;  the  construction  of  the  hand  of  man,  and  an  infinite  variety  of 
other  arguments ;  as  also  by  discoveries,  ancient  and  modern,  in  arts, 
sciences,  and  the  whole  extent  of  literature. 

He  desired,  moreover,  that  the  profits  arising  fi*om  the  sale  of  the 
works  so  published,  should  be  paid  to  the  authors  of  the  works. 

The  late  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  Da  vies  Gilbert,  Esq.  re- 
quested the  assistance  of  his  Grace,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  in  determining  upon  the  best  mode  of 
carrying  into  effect,  the  intentions  of  the  Testator.  Acting  with  their 
advice,  and  with  the  concurrence  of  a  nobleman  immediately  connect- 
ed with  the  deceased,  Mr.  Davies  Gilbert  appointed  the  following  eight 
gentlemen  to  write  separate  Treatises  in  the  different  branches  of  the 
subjects  here  stated: — 

I.  The  Adaptation  of  External  Nature  to  the  Moral  and  Intellec- 
tual Constitution  of  Man,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.  D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 

II.  The  adaptation  of  External  Nature  to  the  Physical  Condition 
of  Man,  hy  John  Kidd,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine 
in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

III.  Astronomy  and  General  Physics,  considered  with  reference  to 
Natural  Theology,  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  Whewell,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  Fel- 
low of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

IV.  The  hand :  its  mechanism  and  vital  endowments  as  evincing 
design,  by  Sir  Charles  Bell,  K.  H.,  F.  R.  S. 

V.  Animal  and  Vegetable  Physiology,  by  Peter  Mark  Roget,  M.  D., 
Fellow  of  and  Secretary  to  the  Royal  Society. 

VI.  Geology  and  Mineralogy,  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  Buckland,  D.  D., 
F.  R.  S.,  Canon  of  Christ  Church,  and  Professor  of  Geology  in  the 
University  of  Oxford. 

VII.  The  History,  Habits,  and  Instincts  of  Animals,  by  the  Rev. 
Wm.  Kirby,  M.A.,  F.R.S. 


THE  PEOFIiE'S  XiZBRARY. 

"  The  editors  and  publishers  should  receive  the  thanks  of  the  present 
generation,  and  the  gratitude  of  posterity,  for  being  the  first  to  prepare  in 
this  language  what  deserves  to  be  entitled  not  the  ENCYCLOPEDIA 
AMERICANA,  but  the  people's  library." — N.  Y.  Courier  and  Enquirer. 


Just  Published,  by  Carey,  Lea,  and  Blancliard, 

And  sold  in  Philadelphia  by  E.  L.  Carey  ^  A.  Hart ;  in  New- York  by 
G.  &  C.^  H.  Carvill ;  in  Boston  by  Carter  ^  Hendee ;  in  Baltimore  by  E. 
J.  Coale,  4-  W.  ^  J.  Neal ;  in  Washington  by  Thompson  ^  Homans ;  in 
Richmond  by  J.H.  Nash;  in  Savannah  by  WT  T.  Williams;  in  Charleston 
by  W.  H.  Berrett ;  in  New-Orleans  by  W.  MKean ;  in  Mobile  by  Odiorne 
(Jr  Smith  ;  and  by  the  principal  booksellers  throughout  tlie  Union. 


THE 

ENCYCLOPAEDIA  AMERICANA : 

A 

POPULAR  DICTIONARY 

OF 

ARTS,  SCIENCES,  LITERATURE,  HISTORY,  AND  POLITICS, 

BROUGHT  DOWN  TO   THE  PRESENT   TIME,   AND    INCLUDING  A    COPIOUS 
COLLECTION  OF  ORIGINAL   ARTICLES  IN 

AMERICAN  BIOGRAPHY: 

On  the  basis  of  the  Seventh  Edition  of  the  German 

CONVERSATIONS-LEXICON. 


Edited  by  FRANCIS  LIEBER, 

ASSISTED   BY 

EDWARD  WIGGLESWORTH  and  T.  G.  BRADFORD,  EsaRS. 


IN  THIRTEEN  LARGE  VOLUMES,  OCTAVO,  PRICE  TO  SUBSCRIBERS, 
BOUND  IN  CLOTH,  TWO  DOLLARS  AND  A  HALF  EACH. 

EACH   VOLUME   WILL   CONTAIN    BETWEEN   600   AND   700   PAGES. 


"THE  WORLD-RENOWNED  CONVERSATIONS-LEXICON."— ^din&ttr^-A 
Review. 

"  To  supersede  cumbrous  Encyclopaedias,  and  put  within  the  reach  of  the  poor- 
est man,  a  complete  library,  equal  to  about  forty  or  fifty  good-sized  octavos,  em- 
bracing every  possible  subject  of  interest  to  the  number  of  20,060  m  all— provided 
he  can  spare  either  from  his  earnings  or  his  extravagancies,  twenty  cents  a  week, 
for  three  years,  a  library  so  contrived,  as  to  be  equally  suited  to  the  learnec'  and 
the  unlearned,— the  mechanic— the  merchant,  and  the  professional  man."— JV*.  Y. 
Courier  and  Inquirer. 

"  The  reputation  of  this  valuable  work  has  augmented  with  each  volume ;  and 
if  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  press,  uttered  from  all  quarters,  be  true,  which 
in  this  instance  happens  to  be  the  case,  it  is  indeed  one  of  the  best  of  publica- 
tions. It  should  be  in  the  possession  of  every  intelEigent  man,  as  it  is  a  library 
in  itself,  comprising  an  immense  mass  of  lore  upon  almost  every  possible  sub- 
ject, and  in  the  cheapest  possible  form." — JV*.  Y.  Mirror. 


"Witnesses  from  every  part  of  the  country  concurred  in  declaring  lliat  the 
EncyclopaBdia  Americana  was  in  a  fair  way  to  degrade  the  dignity  of  learning, 
and  especially  the  learning  of  Encyclopjedias,  by  making  it  too  cheap— that  the 
multitudes  of  all  classes  were  infatuated  with  it  in  saying  in  so  many  words 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  '  the  more  we  see  of  the  work  the  better  we  like 
it.'  " — JV.  Y.  Courier  and  Inquirer. 

"  The  articles  in  the  present  volume  appear  to  us  to  evince  the  same  ability 
and  research  which  gained  so  favorable  a  reception  for  the  work  at  its  com- 
mencement. The  .Appendix  to  the  volume  now  before  us,  containing  an  account 
of  the  Indian  Languages  of  .America,  must  prove  highly  interesting  to  the  reader 
in  this  country;  and  it  is  at  once  remarkable  as  a  specimen  of  history  and  phi- 
lology. The  work  altogether,  we  may  again  be  permitted  to  observe,  reflects 
distinguished  credit  upon  the  literary  and  scientific  character,  as  well  as  the 
scholarship  of  our  country." — Charleston  Courier. 

"The  copious  information  which  this  work  affords  on  American  subjects, 
fully  justifies  its  title  of  an  American  Dictionary;  while  at  the  same  time  the 
extent,  variety,  and  felicitous  disposition  of  its  topics,  make  it  the  most  conve- 
nient and  satisfactory  Encyclopaedia  that  we  have  ever  seen.''— JSTationalJournal. 

"  If  the  succeeding  volumes  shall  equal  in  merit  the  one  before  us,  we  may 
confidently  anticipate  for  the  work  a  reputation  and  usefulness  which  ought  to 
secure  for  it  the  most  flattering  encouragement  and  patronage."— FederaZ  Gazette. 

"  The  variety  of  topics  is  of  course  vast,  and  they  are  treated  in  a  manner 
which  is  at  once  so  full  of  information  and  so  interesting,  that  the  work,  instead 
of  being  merely  referred  to,  might  be  regularly  perused  with  as  much  pleasure  as 
profit." — Baltimore  American. 

"We  view  it  as  a  publication  worthy  of  the  age  and  of  the  country,  and  can- 
not but  believe  the  discrimination  of  our  countrymen  will  sustain  the  publish- 
ers, and  well  reward  them  for  this  contribution  to  American  Literature."— £a/- 
timore  Patriot. 

"  It  reflects  the  greatest  credit  on  those  who  have  been  concerned  in  its  pro- 
duction, and  promises,  in  a  variety  of  respects,  to  be  the  best  as  well  as  the  most 
compendious  dictionary  of  the  arts,  sciences,  history,  politics,  biography,  &c. 
which  has  yet  been  compiled.  The  style  of  the  portion  we  have  read  is  terse 
and  perspicuous;  and  it  is  really  curious  how  so  much  scientific  and  other  in- 
formation could  have  been  so  satisfactorily  communicated  in  such  brief  limits." 
— JV*.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

"  A  compendious  library,  and  invaluable  book  of  reference."— JV.  Y.  American. 

"  Those  who  can,  by  any  honest  modes  of  economy,  reserve  the  sum  of  two 
dollars  and  fifty  cents  quarterly,  from  their  family  expenses,  may  pay  for  this 
work  as  fast  as  it  is  published  ;  'and  we  confidently  believe  that  they  will  find  at 
the  end  that  they  never  purchased  so  much  general,  practical,  useful  information 
at  so  cheap  a  rate." — Journal  of  Education. 

"  If  the  encouragement  to  the  publishers  should  correspond  with  the  testimony 
in  favor  of  their  enterprise,  and  the  beautiful  and  faithful  style  of  its  execution, 
the  hazard  of  the  undertaking,  bold  as  it  was,  will  be  well  compensated  ;  and 
our  libraries  will  be  enriched  by  the  most  generally  useful  encyclopedic  diction- 
ary that  has  been  offered  to  the  readers  of  the  English  language.  Full  enough 
for  the  general  scholar,  and  plain  enough  for  every  capacity,  it  is  far  more  con- 
venient, in  every  view  and  form,  than  its  more  expensive  and  ponderous  prede- 
cessors " — American  Farmer. 

"The  high  reputation  of  the  contributors  to  this  work,  will  not  fail  to  insure 
it  a  favorable  reception,  and  its  own  merits  will  do  the  rest."— StWijnan's  Journ. 

"  The  work  will  be  a  valuable  possession  to  every  family  or  individual  that 
can  afford  to  purchase  it ;  and  we  take  pleasure,  therefore,  in  extending  the 
knowledge  of  its  merits."— JVotiono/:  Intelligencer. 

"The  Encylopsedia  Americana  is  a  prodigious  improvement  upon  all  that  has 
gone  before  it ;  a  thing  for  our  country,  as  well  as  the  country  that  have  it  birth, 
to  be  proud  of;  an  inexhaustible  treasury  of  useful,  pleasant,  and  familiar  learn- 
ing on  every  possible  subject,  so  arranged  as  to  be  speedily  and  safety  referred  to 
on  emergency,  as  well  as  on  deliberate  inquiry;  and  better  still,  adapted  to  the 
understanding,  and  put  within  the  reach  of  the  multitude.  *  *  *  The  Ency- 
clopsdia  Americana  is  a  work  without  which  no  library  worthy  of  the  name 
can  hereafter  be  made  up."— yianftcc. 


LARDNER'S  CABINET  CYCLOPAEDIA. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGIiAND.    By  Sir  James  Mackintosh.    In 
8  Vols.    Vols.  1,  fi  and  3  publislied. 

"  In  the  first  volume  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh's  History  of  England,  we 
find  enough  to  warrant  the  anticipations  of  the  public,  that  a  calm  and  lumin- 
ous philosophy  will  difiiise  itself  over  the  long  narrative  of  our  British  His- 
tory."—Edinburgh  R&view. 

"  In  this  volume  Sir  James  Mackintosh  fully  developes  those  great  powers, 
for  the  possession  of  which  the  public  have  long  given  him  credit.  The  resirit 
is  the  ablest  commentary  that  has  yet  appeared  in  our  language  upon  some 
of  the  most  important  circumstances  of  English  History."— ^«/a«. 

"Worthy  in  the  method,  style,  and  reflections,  of  the  author's  high  reputa- 
tion. We  were  particularly  pleased  with  his  high  vein  of  philosophical  sen- 
timent, and  his  occasional  survey  of  contemporary  annals." — JVat.  Gazette. 

"  If  talents  of  the  highest  order,  long  experience  in  politics,  and  years  of 
application  to  the  study  of  history  and  the  collection  of  information,  can  com- 
mand super'iority  in  a  historian.  Sir  James  Machintosh  may,  without  reading 
this  work,  be  said  to  have  produced  the  best  history  of  this  country.  A  peru- 
sal of  the  work  will  prove  that  those  who  anticipated  a  superior  production, 
have  not  reckoned  in  vain  on  the  high  qualifications  of  the  author."— Cowrtcr. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  NETHERLANDS,  to  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo.    By  T.  C.  Grattan. 

"  It  is  but  justice  to  Mr.  Grattan  to  aay  that  he  has  executed  his  laborious 
task  with  much  industry  and  proportionate  effect.  Undisfigured  by  pompous 
nothingness,  and  without  any  of  the  affectation  of  philosophical  profundity, 
his  style  is  simple,  light,  and  fresh— perspicuous,  smooth,  and  harmonious."— 
La  Belle  JissembUe. 

"  Never  did  work  appear  at  a  more  fortunate  period.  The  volume  before  us 
is  a  compressed  but  clear  and  impartial  narrative."— Zit.  Oaz, 


HISTORY  OF  FRANCE.  By  Eyre  Evans  Crowe.  In  3  vols. 

"  His  history  of  France  is  worthy  to  figure  with  the  works  of  his  associates, 
the  best  of  their  day,  Scott  and  Mackintosh."— JkroJ^</tZy  Mag. 

"  For  such  a  task  Mr.  Crowe  is  eminently  qualified.  At  a  glance,  as  it  were, 
his  eye  takes  in  the  theatre  of  centuries.  His  style  is  neat,  clear,  and  pithy; 
and  his  power  of  condensation  enables  him  to  say  much,  and  effectively.  In  a 
few  words,  to  present  a  distinct  and  perfect  picture  in  a  narrowly  circum- 
scribed space."— La  Belle  .^ssemblee. 


HISTORY  OF  SCOTIiAND.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott.  In  3  Vols. 

"  The  History  of  Scotland,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  we  do  net  hesitate  to  de- 
clare, will  be,  if  possible,  more  extensively  read,  than  the  most  popular  work 
of  fiction,  by  the  same  prolific  author,  and  for  this  obvious  reason :  it  com- 
bines much  of  the  brilliant  coloring  of  the  Ivanhoe  pictures  of  by-gone  man- 
ners, and  all  the  graceful  facility  of  style  and  picturesqueness  of  description 
of  his  other  charming  romances,  with  a  minute  fidelity  to  the  facts  of  history, 
and  a  searching  scrutiny  into  their  authenticity  and  relative  value,  which 
might  put  to  the  blush  Mr.  Hume  and  other  professed  historians.  Such  is  the 
magic  charm  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  pen,  it  has  only  to  touch  the  simplest  inci- 
dent of  every-day  life,  and  it  starts  up  invested  with  all  the  interest  of  a  scene 
of  romance;  and  yet  such  is  his  fidelity  to  the  text  of  nature,  that  the  knights 
and  serfs,  and  collared  fools  with  whom  his  inventive  genius  has  peopled  so 
many  volumes,  are  regarded  by  us  as  not  mere  creations  of  fancy,  but  as  real 
flesh  and  blood  existences,  with  all  the  virtues,  feelings  and  errora  of  com- 
mon-place humanity."— Z-if.  Gazette. 


LARDNER'S  CABINET  CYCLOPEDIA. 


fflSTORY  OF  THE  RISE,  PROGRESS,  and  PRESENT 
STATE  OF  THE  SILK  MANUFACTURE ;  with  numerous 
engravings. 

"It  contains  abundant  information  in  every  department  of  this  interesting 
branch  of  human  industry — in  the  history,  culture,  and  manufacture  of  silk."— 
Monthly  Magazine. 

"  There  is  a  great  deal  of  curious  information  in  this  little  volume."— ii«.  Oaz. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  ITALIAN  REPUBLICS ;  being  a  View  of 
the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Fall  of  Italian  Freedom.  By  J.  C.  L. 
De  Sismondi. 

"  The  excellencies,  defects,  and  fortunes  of  the  governments  of  the  Italian 
commonwealths,  form  a  body  «f  the  most  valuable  materials  for  political  phi- 
losophy. It  is  time  that  they  should  be  accessible  to  the  American  people,  as 
they  are  about  to  be  rendered  in  Sismondi's  masterly  abridgment.  He  has  done 
for  his  large  work,  what  Irving  accomplished  so  well  for  his  Life  of  Columbus." 
—JValional  Oazette. 

HISTORY  OF  the  RISE,  PROGRESS,  and  PRESENT 
STATE  OF  the  manufactures  of  PORCELAIN  and 
GLASS.     With  numerous  Wood  Cuts. 

"  In  the  design  and  execution  of  the  work,  the  author  has  displayed  consider- 
able judgment  and  skill,  and  has  so  disposed  of  his  valuable  materials  as  to  ren- 
der the  book  attractive  and  instructive  to  the  general  class  of  readers."— Sat. 
Evening  Post. 

"  The  author  has,  by  a  popular  treatment,  made  it  one  of  the  most  interesting 
books  that  has  been  issued  of  this  series.  There  are,  we  believe,  few  of  the 
useful  arts  less  generally  understood  than  those  of  porcelain  and  glass  making. 
These  are  completely  illustrated  by  Dr.  Lardner,  and  the  various  process*  s  of 
forming  differently  fashioned  utensils,  are  fully  described." 

BIOGRAPHY  OF  BRITISH  STATESMEN;  containing  the 
Lives  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh; 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  Archbishop  Cranmer,  and  Lord  Burleigh. 

"  A  very  delightful  volume,  and  on  a  subject  likely  to  increase  in  interest 
as  it  proceeds.  *  *  *  We  cordially  commend  the  work  both  for  its  design  and 
execution." — London  Lit.  Oazette. 

The  history  of  SPAIN  and  PORTUGAL.     In  5  vols. 

"  A  general  History  of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Peninsula,  is  a  great  de 
sideratum  in  our  language,  and  we  are  glad  to  see  it  begun  under  such  favorable 
auspices.  We  have  seldom  met  with  a  narrative  which  fixes  attention  more 
steadily,  and  bears  the  reader's  mind  along  more  pleasantly." 

"  In  the  volumes  before  us,  there  is  unquestionable  evidence  of  capacity  for 
the  task,  and  research  in  the  execution."— f7.  5.  Journal. 

"  Of  course  this  work  can  be  but  an  abridgment;  but  we  know  not  where  so 
much  ability  has  been  shown  in  condensation.  It  is  unequalled,  and  likely 
long  to  remain  so.  **  We  were  convinced,  on  the  publication  of  the  first  vol- 
ume, that  it  was  no  common  compilation,  manufactured  to  order;  we  were  pre- 
pared to  announce  it  as  a  very  valuable  addition  to  our  literature.  ***  Our 
last  words  must  be,  heartily  to  recommend  it  to  our  readers." — ithenaum.. 

HISTORY  OF  SWITZERLAND. 

"  Like  the  preceding  historical  numbers  of  tliis  valuable  publication,  it 
abounds  with  interesting  details,  illustrative  of  the  habits,  character,  and  polit- 
ical complexion  of  the  people  and  country  it  describes  ;  and  aftbrds,  in  the  small 
space  of  one  volume,  a  digest  of  all  the  important  facts  which,  in  more  elaborate 
histories,  occupy  five  times  the  space."— jErcnin^  Post. 


New  Works,  published  by  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blanchard. 


DR.  BIRD'S  NEW  NOVEL— CAL AVAR. 

CALAVAR,  OR  THE  KNIGHT  OF  THE  CONQUEST,  a 

Romance  of  Mexico.    Tavo  vols.  ISmo. 

"  Suffice  it  to  sa3%  that  Calavar,  throuj^hout,  is  a  romance  of  very  great  inte- 
rest. It  will  interest  the  imaginative  from  its  spirited  and  stirring  scenes  of 
battle  and  blood  :  it  will  please  the  poetic  from  the  splendour  and  beauty  of  its 
descriptions,  and  it  will  charm  every  lover  of  fiction  by  the  masterly  and  graphic 
scenes  which  it  will  continually  present  to  him." — JV.  V.  Commercial  Adver. 

"  Tli^  work  may  fairly  rank  among  the  highest  effi)rts  of  genius,  and  we  do 
not  scruple  to  pronounce  it  superior  to  any  thing  of  the  kind  which  has  yet 
emanated  from  the  American  press." — Baltimore  Federal  Qazettc. 

"  In  our  opinion,  it  is  decidedly  the  best  American  novel  that  has  been  writ- 
ten, except  those  enchanting  pictures  of  Cooper,  in  which  the  interest  is  made 
to  depend  on  the  vicissitudes  pf  the  sea,  and  the  adventures  of  the  daring 
mariner." 

"  The  style  elegant,  sufficiently  ornate,  yet  pure  and  classical." 

"  The  period  which  has  been  judiciously  selected  by  this  writer,  is  one  of  the 
highest  interest— a  period  so  crowded  with  important  events,  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  contemplate  its  vivid  scenes  without  intense  curioeity  and  wonder." — 
Hairs  IVcstern  JMonthlij  Mafrazine. 

"  The  unities  are  perfectly  preserved  throughout,  poetical  probability  is  never 
transgressed  :  curiosity  is  satisfied,  and  the  quaint  language  of  three  centuries 
ago  is  sustained  with  unwavering  consistency,  and  with  a  force  and  elegance 
of  composition  rarely,  if  ever,  surpassed.  It  i.s,  without  question,  the  best 
American  novel  that  has  yet  appeared." — JV.  Y.  American. 

GRUMMETT'S  LOG. 

LEAVES  FROM  3IY  LOG  BOOK.  By  Flexible  Grnmmett, 
P.  M.    Ill  one  vol. 

RANDOLPH'S  LETTERS.  Letters  of  John  Randolph  to  a 
youn§^  relative,  embracing  a  series  of  years,  from  early 
youth  to  mature  manhood.    In  one  vol. 

"This  collection,  made  by  the  young  relative  himself,  is  entirely  authentic. 
The  letters  were  selected  from  among  several  hundred,  as  most  lit  for  publica- 
tion. Every  one  of  them  is  strongly  characteristic.  They  are  made  up  of 
e.xcellent  instructions  to  his  relative,  respecting  personal  conduct  and  the  culture 
of  his  mind;  philosophical  remarks;  accounts  of  his  own  situation  and  feel- 
ings; notices  of  his  acquaintance,  .fee." — IN'ational  Oazette. 

"The  letters  now  published  exhibit  many  amiable  traits  of  private  character, 
and  show  how  keenly  lie  suffi?red  from  his  own  overwrought  sensibilities. 
They  abound  in  evidences  of  good  feeling,  and  good  sense.  As  specimens  of 
epistolary  style,  thjy  may  be  safely  consulted;  while,  as  furnishing  a  closer 
insight  into  the  views  and  habits  of  a  man  who  was  misunderstood  by  many, 
and  whose  history  is  part  of  the  history  of  his  country,  they  should  be  read  by 
all." — Daily  Chronicle. 

CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  King 
Charles  the  First.    By  Lucy  Aikin.    In  two  vols.  8vo. 

"The  admirers  of  Charles  the  First, owe  no  gratitude  to  Miss  Aikin.  She 
has  told  too  plain  a  tale.  She  has  given,  it  is  true,  no  summary  of  the  cha- 
racter of  that  monarch,  but  she  has  devoted  an  e-xtensive  work  to  a  faithful 
relation  of  his  public  works  and  actions,  and  has  left  it  to  tell  its  story." — 
Jltkcnanim. 

"  Following  up  her  interesting  career  of  an  historical  writer,  Lucy  Aikin 
has  here  produced  one  of  those  episodes  belonging  to  our  national  annals, 
which  add  to  the  importance  of  facts  elaborated  from  many  a  source,  all  the 
charms  which  are  usually  found  in  the  inventions  of  fiction. 

"  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  from  family  and  other  papers  long  hidden  from  the 
public  view,  new  lights  are  ever  and  anon  shed  upon  the  actors  and  pro- 
ceedings of  that  time  ;  and  that  without  delving  too  deeply  into  them,  our 
intelligent  author  has  wrought  the  whole  into  one  of  those  agreeable  nar- 
ratives for  which  her  pen  is  so  justly  popular." — Lit.  Gazette. 


New  Works,  published  l>y  Carey,  lica,  &>  Blancliard. 


PENCIL.    SKETCHES, 

OR  OUTLmES  OF  CHARACTER  AND  MANNERS. 
BY   MISS   LESLIE. 

"  Look  here  upon  this  picture,  and  on  ihia.''—Shakspeare. 

Contents. — The  Escorted  Lady.  A  Pic-Nic  at  the  Sea- 
Shore.  The  Miss  Vanlears.  Country  Lodgings.  Sociable  Vis- 
iting. Frank  Finlay.  The  Travelling  Tin-man.  Mrs.  Wasli- 
ington  Potts.  Uncle  Philip.  The  Revolutionary  Officer.  Poland 
and  Liberty.  The  Duchess  and  Sancho.  The  Clean  Face. 
Lady  Jane  Grey.    In  one  volume,  12mo. 


"  Miss  Leslie  hits,  skilfully  and  hard,  the  follies,  foibles,  and  exceptionable 
manners  of  our  meridian.  She  is  perhaps  too  severe  ;  she  draws  too  broadly, 
but  she  is  always  more  or  less  entertaining,  and  conveys  salutary  lessons  even 
in  her  strongest  caricatures.  Her  subjects,  incidents,  and  persons,  are  happily 
chosen  for  her  purposes." — jsTational  Oaictte. 


THE  HUNCHBACK  OF  NOTRE-DAME. 

BY  VICTOR  HUGO. 

With  a  Sketch  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  the  Author,  by 
Frederick  Shoberl.     In  2  vols.  12mo. 

"  Victor  Hugo  is  a  most  powerful  writer — a  man  of  splendid  genius»  and 
gigantic  grasp  of  mind." — Court  Journal. 


ROOKWOOD— A  ROMANCE. 

BY  W.  HARRISON  AINSWORTH. 

From  the  second  London  edition.  In  2  vols.  12mo. 
"This  is  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  romantic  of  '  the  season's'  produc- 
tion. Full  of  life  and  fire,  it  excites  the  reader  and  carries  him  onward — 
much  as  the  true  heroine  of  the  tale,  the  mare  Black  Bess,  does  the  true 
hero  of  it,  the  robber  Turfin — with  mingled  sensations  of  terror  and 
delight.  It  is  a  wild  story,  told  with  exceeding  skill,  and  wrought  up  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  which  so  singular  a  subject  is  capable. — The  book  is 
an  excellent  one,  and  the  author  may  take  a  high  station  among  the 
romance  writers  of  our  time." — New  Monthly  Magazine. 


VATHEK.— AN  ORIENTAL  TALE. 

BY  MR.  BECKFORD,  AUTHOR  OF  ITALY,  &C. 

"  A  very  remarkable  performance.    It  continues  in  poBsession  of  all  the 
celebrity  it  once  commanded."— Qj/ntr/eWy  Review,  1834. 


New  Works,  puMlslied  l>y  Carey,  Lea,  &-  Blancliard* 


THE  MAGDALEN  AND  OTHER  TALES. 

By  Sheridan  Knowles,  Author  of  The  Wife,  Hunchback,  &c. 

In  1  volume,  ISnfio. 


THE  INSURGENTS. 

An  Historical  Tale.    In  2  volumes,  12mo. 


JULIAN  FARQUHARSON,  or  the  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  POET 
In  2  volumes,  12mo. 


HORSE-SHOE  ROBINSON. 

A  TALE  OF  THE  TORY  ASCENDENCY, 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  SWALLOVir  BARN.    IN  2  VOLS.  12mO. 

AURUNGZEBE; 
A    TALE    OF    ALRASCHID. 
An  Eastern  Tale.     In  2  volumes  12ma 


THE    CANTERBURY   TALE 

BY    SOPHIA    AND    HARRIET    LEE. 


"There  are  fine  things  in  the  *  The  Canterbury  Tales.'  Nothing  of  Scott's 
is  finer  than  'The  German  Tale.'  I  admired  it  when  a  boy,  and  have  con- 
tinued to  like  what  I  did  then.  This,  I  remember,  particularly  affected  me." 
— Lord  Byron. 

"  To  read  the  Canterbury  Tales  of  the  Misses  Lee  once  more,  is  a  species  of 
temporary  regeneration.  There  is  scarcely  any  educated  person  of  this  cen- 
tury who  has  not,  at  some  time  or  other,  of  youth,  drawn  a  sincere  pleasure 
from  these  pages.  The  different  tales  have  been  to  many  like  turning  down 
a  leaf  in  life ;  we  can  find  our  place  again  in  juvenile  existence  by  the  asso- 
ciations connected  with  them.  The  Officer's  Tale,  perhaps,  was  read  on  some 
sunny  bank  in  a  pleasant  land — a  stolen  pleasure.  The  Young  Lady's  Tale  un- 
folded all  its  intricacy  on  some  fair  sofa  of  a  well-remembered  apartment.  On 
the  German  Tale,  perhaps,  two  hearts  beat  in  unison,  trembled  in  harmony, 
and,  when  sharing  a  mutual  agitation,  two  heads  bent  over  the  mystic  page, 
they  turned  round  to  see  each  other's  fright  reflectedin  well-known  and  well- 
loved  features.  Even  novvw«  feel  a  shiver  running  over  the  frame,  as  we  call 
to  mind  the  fearful  whisper  of  the  name  of  Kruitzner,  amidst  the  silent  throng 
of  a  kneeling  congregation  in  the  cathedral.  Such  a  memoria  technica  has  its 
charm ;  and  we  may  be  pardoned  for  approaching  this  number  of '  The  Standard 
Novels'  with  feelings  of  far  more  interest  than  we  take  up  any  new  novel  of 
the  day." — Spectator. 


THE  MAYOR  OF  WIND  GAP. 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  o'lIARA  TALES. 


MY  COUSIN  NICHOLAS.     2  Vols. 


New  Works,  puMisIied  l>y  Carey,  lica,  &-  Blancliard. 


LEGENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY  AT  LILIES. 

BY  THE  LORD  AND  LADY  THERE. 

In  2  vols.  12mo. 

"Two  delightful  volumes,  various,  graceful,  with  the  pathos  exquisitely 
relieved  by  gaiety;  and  the  romantic  legend  well  contrasted  by  the  lively 
sketch  from  actual  existence."— itterary  Gazette. 

"  The  author  of  these  volumes  merits  much  higher  praise  than  most  of  the 
pretenders  to  the  palm  of  genius." — Bait.  American. 


FRANKENSTEIN, 

OR,  THE    MODERN    PROMETHEUS. 

BY  MRS.  SHELLEY.      In  2  VOLUMES,  12mO.* 

"  The  romance  of  a  child  of  genius.  '—Canning. 

'•  One  of  those  original  conceptions  that  take  bold  of  the  public  mind  at 
once  and  for  ever." — Moore's  Life  of  Byron. 

"Certainly  one  of  the  most  original  works  that  ever  proceeded  from  a 
female  pen." — Literary  Gazette. 

"  This  work  will  be  universally  acceptable."— .^t/as. 

"  Perhaps  there  is  no  modern  invention  which  has  taken  more  thorough 
hold  of  the  popular  imagination  than  Frankenstein."— 5peciator. 


WILL  WATCH, 
OR  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  NAVAL  OFFICER. 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  CAVENDISH,  &C.   3  VOLS.  12mO. 


THE   PRINCESS. 

BY  LADY  MORGAN,  AUTHOR  OF  FLORENCE  MACARTHY  o'dONNELL, 

&.C.    2  vols.  12mo. 


THE  MOST  UNFORTUNATE  MAN  IN  THE  WORLD. 

BT  CAPTAIN  CHAMIER,  AUTHOR  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  A  SAILOR,  &C.   2  VOLS.  12mO. 


TPIE    MODERN    CYMON. 

From  the  Jean  of  C.  Paul  de  Kock,  Author  of  Andrew  the 
Savoyard,  &c.     In  2  vols.  12mo. 

"  De  Kock  is  quite  unrivalled  in  his  sketches  of  Parisi'in  society.  There  is 
much  character  and  spirit  thrown  into  the  translation,  aim  the  dialogues  are 
excellent."— Z,i^  Gazette. 

"  A  cood  translation  of  a  clever  work.  Paul  de  Kock  paints  to  the  life  the 
bourgeois  of  Paris."— .^tAcnaum. 

"We  cannot  withhold  our  applause  of  the  subtle  spirit  of  fun,  the  fine 
dramatic  tact,  and  the  natural  portraiture  of  character."— ^iZas. 


New  WorkS)  pulilislied  by  Carey,  I<ea,  &>  Blancliard* 


THE 

WONDROUS  TALE  OF  ALROY. 

THE 

RISE  OF  ISKANDER. 
BY  D'ISRAELI, 

AUTHOR  OF  VIVIAN  GREY,  THE  YOUNG  DUKE,  CONTARINI  FLEMING, 

&C.  &C.  &C. 

TWO  VOLUMES,  12mo. 


LOVE  AND  PRIDE. 
A  NOVEL. 

BY   THE   AUTHOR   OF   SAYINGS   AND   DOINGS. 

In  2  vols.  12mo. 

NEWTON  FORSTER, 

OR  THE   MERCHANT   SERVICE. 

BY   THE   AUTHOR   OF   PETER   SIMPLE,   &C. 

In  2  vols.  12rao. 


THE    BUCCANEER, 

A  TALE, 

BY  MRS.  S.  C.  HALL, 
AUTHOR   OF   "SKETCHES    OF   IRISH  CHARACTER,"   &C. 

In  2  vols.  12mo.    From  the  3d  London  edition. 

"This  work  belongs  to  the  historic  school;  but  it  has  that  talent  which 
bestows  its  own  attraction  on  whatever  subject  its  peculiar  taste  may  select." 
—Lit.  Gazette. 

"  An  admirable  historical  romance,  full  of  interest,  and  with  many  new 
views  of  character.  The  plot  is  extremely  well  conceived,  very  artful  and 
progressing,  the  story  never  flags,  and  you  open  at  once  upon  the  main  inter- 
est."— JVew  Monthly  Magazine. 


TYLNEY  HALL—A  novel. 

By  Thomas  Hood,  Author  of  the  "  Comic  Annual,"  &c.     In  2 

vols.  12mo. 

"  At  last,  after  having  been  on  the  look-out  for  this  long  promised  novel,  with  much  such  impatience  as 
the  schoolboy  watches  for  the  cuckoo,  who  remaining  unseen,  still  keeps  him  in  quest  of  her,  bv  uttering 
some  tantalizing  note  close  in  his  neighbourhood.  At  last,  we  have  fairly  laid  hold  of  this  Will  o'  the 
Wisp  of  a  book,  the  first  of  its  kind,  but  we  hope  not  the  lust."— Atheneeum. 


CALAVAR; 

OR  THE  KNIGHT  OF  THE  CONQUEST. 

BY  DR.  BIRD.      2  VOLS.  12mO. 


Ne^v  WorkS)  published  "by  Carey^  lica,  d&  Blancbard* 


NEW  GIL  BLAS, 

OR,  PEDRO  OF  PENAFLOR. 

BY  R.  D.  INGLIS,  AUTHOR  OF  SPAIN  IN  1830. 

IN  2  VOLS.  12mo. 

"  The  whole  work  is  very  amusing." — Literary  Oazette. 

"  Those  who  want  a  few  hours  of  pleasant  reading  are  not  likely  to  meet 
with  a  book  more  to  their  taste."— Jlt/ieneBum. 

"  The  labor  and  power,  as  well  as  knowledge,  displayed — the  'New  Gil  Bias' 
deserves  to  stand  forth  to  the  public  view  with  every  advantage.  We  have 
read  these  volumes  with  great  delight." — Metropolitan. 


EBEN    ERSKINE, 
OR,  THE  TRAVELLER. 

BY  JOHN  ©ALT,  AUTHOR  OF  LAWRIE  TODD,  ENTAIL,  &C. 

IN  2  VOLS.  12mo. 

"  A  clever  and  intelligent  author.  Tliere  is  a  quaint  humor  and  observance 
of  character  in  his  novels,  that  interest  me  very  much ;  and  when  he  chooses 
to  be  pathetic,  he  fools  one  to  his  bent;  for,  I  assure  you,  the  'Entail'  beguiled 
me  of  some  portion  of  watery  humors,  yclept  tears,  albeit  unused  to  the  melt- 
ing mood.  He  has  a  sly  caustic  humor  that  is  very  amusing." — Lord  Byron  to 
Lady  Blessington. 

"  One  of  the  remarkable  characteristics  of  Gait,  is  to  be  found  in  the  rare 
power  he  possesses  of  giving  such  an  appearance  of  actual  truth  to  his  narra 
tive,  as  induces  the  reader  to  doubt  whether  that  which  he  is  perusing,  under 
the  name  of  a  novel,  be  not  rather  a  stalsment  of  amusing  facts,  than  an 
invented  story." 


ROSINE   liAVAL., 

BY  MR.  SMITH. 

An  American  Novel.     In  1  volume,  12mo. 

"  The  peruial  of  a  few  pages  of  the  work  must  impress  every  reader  with 
the  opinion  that  the  writer  is  no  ordinary  person." — J^at.  Oazette. 

"  His  pages  abound  with  pas.sages  of  vigor  and  beaiity,  with  much  fund 
for  abstract  thought;  and  with  groups  of  incidents  which  not  only  fix  the 
attention  of  the  reader,  but  awake  his  admiration." — Phil.  Gazette. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing,  chaste,  and  spirited  productions  that  we 
have  met  with  for  a  long  time.  We  may  claim  it  with  pride  as  an  American 
production."— .Ba/f.  Oazette. 

CECIL  HYDE.— A  novel,   in  2  vols.  12mo. 
"  This  is  a  new '  Pelham.'   It  is  altogether  a  novel  of  manners,  and  paints 
with  truth,  and  a  lively,  sketchy  spirit,  the  panorama  of  fashionable  life." 
—Alias. 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  JACK  KETCH. 

IN  ONE  VOL.  WITH  PLATES 


New  WorkS)  pu1[>ljj3]ied  by  Carey,  I<ea,  &>  Blancbard* 


THE   LIBRARY   OF   ROMANCE, 

WHICH   CONSISTS   OF  A   SERIES   OP 

ORIGINAL  TALES,  NOVELS,  AND  OTHER  WORKS  OF  FICTION, 

BY  THE  MOST  EMINENT  WRITERS  OF  THE  AGE,  AND  EDITED  BY 

Leitch  Ritchie,  Esq. 


Vol.  I. 

THE  GHOST-HUNTER  AND  HIS  FAMILY,  by  Mr. 
Banim,  author  of  the  O'Hara  Tales,  is  universally  acknow- 
ledged tt>  be  the  most  talented  and  extraordinary  work  that 
has  issued  from  the  press  for  many  years. 

"  Mr.  Banina  has  put  forth  all  the  vigor  that  belongs  to  the  old  O'Hara 
Tales,  and  avoided  the  weakness  that  sullied  his  subsequent  eSons."—Mhe- 
naum. 

"  There  is  more  tenderness,  more  delicacy  shown  in  the  development  of  female 
character,  than  we  have  ever  before  met  with  in  the  works  of  this  powerful 
novelist. 

"  Banim  nover  conceived  a  character  more  finely  than  the  young  Ghost-Hun- 
ter, Morris  Brady.  It  is  a  bold  and  striking  outline."— ./flwfAor  qf  Eugene 
Aram. 


Vol.  VIII. 

WALDEMAR, 

A  TALE  OF  THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 

BY  W.  H.  HARRISON,  AUTHOR  OF  TALES  OF  A  PHYSICIAN,  dtC. 


Vol.  II. 
SCHINDERHANNES,  THE  ROBBER  OF  THE  RHINE, 

BY   THE   EDITOR. 

"  It  IS  Ions  since  we  have  met  with  so  bold,  spirited,  and  original  a  story." 
— Literary  Oazette. 

"  We  now  once  more  recommend  the  work  itself,  and  the  series,  of  which 
it  is  a  worthy  volume,  to  the  public." — Athenmum 

"Decidedly  one  of  the  best  romances  we  have  ever  read." — Court  Journal. 

"  Mr.  Ritchie's  Tales  sometimes  amount  to  the  sublime,  either  in  the  terri- 
ble exigency  or  the  melting  pathos  of  the  event,  or  in  the  picturesque  energy 
of  the  description.— Schinderhannes  may  be  esteemed  as  the  best  work  of  he- 
tion  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  his  pen."— j3tZas. 


New  Works,  published  l>y  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blanchard* 


Vol.  ill 
WALTHAM, 

A  NOVEL. 

"  Certain  we  are  that  very  few  of  our  modern  novels  can  produce  a  charac- 
ter more  admirably  drawn  than  that  of  Murdock  Macara,  and  Johnson  the 
quondam  tutor  ;  Mr.  Bolton  and  Hulson  are  sketches  that  no  one  but  a  man 
of  talent  could  have  conceived,  and  none  but  a  master  could  have  filled  up."— 
London  Monthly  Magazine. 

"  It  is  a  publication  of  no  ordinary  merit,  is  written  with  considerable  pow- 
er, and  embodies  a  story  of  deep  interest.  The  Library  of  Komance  has 
already  an  extensive  circulation,  and  deserves  still  greater. 

"  The  numbers  published  thus  far,  are  devoted  to  works  of  the  best  descrip- 
tion, and  are  calculated  to  entertain  without  offending  a  single  moral  pre- 
cept."— Penn.  Inquirer. 

*'  There  are  some  fine  passages,  and  touches  of  strong  descriptive  powers  of 
nature  and  characters." — Bait.  Amer. 

Vol.  IV. 
THE    STOLEN    CHILD, 

A  TALE  OF  THE  TOWN, 

BY   JOHN   GALT. 

"  The  autobiography  in  this  volume  is  equal  to  Mr.  Gait's  best  days,  and 
even  his  subordinate  characters  are  worthy  to  be  recorded  in  the  Annals  of 
the  Parish."— ./9tAe/ucMm. 

"  The  Stolen  Child  is  a  most  cleverly  managed  story. 

"  We  do  not  think  any  one  ever  exceeded  Mr.  Gait  in  sketching  national 
portraits— they  are  pre^rved  as  if  for  a  museum  of  natural  curiosities." — 
Lit.  Oaz. 

"  A  story  of  considerable  interest."— Pott.  Oazette* 

Vol.  V. 
THE    BONDMAN, 

A  TALE  OF  THE  TIMES  OF  WAT  TYLER. 

"  A  very  picturesque  and  interesting  story,  and  laid  during  a  period  which 
well  deserves  illustration."— ii«.  Oaz. 

"  One  of  those  stirring  narrations  that  give  a  picture  of  the  times,  and  take 
along  the  reader  with  the  events,  as  if  he  was  indeed  a  part  of  what  he  read. 
This  series  of  romances  has  thus  far  maintained  its  character  for  novelty  and 
raciness,  and  while  the  whole  is  worthy  of  especial  commendation,  each  num- 
ber is  in  itself  a  complete  story."—?/.  .S.  Gazette. 

"  The  narrative  embraces  one  of  the  most  interesting  periods  of  English  his- 
torv,  and  is  full  of  life  and  spirit.  The  character  of  Wat  Tyler  is  well  depict- 
ed."—.Batt.  OazcU«. 

Vol.  VL 
THE    SLAVE-KING, 

FROM   THE    "BUG-JARGAL"    OF   VICTOR   HUGO. 

'*  In  this  abridged  tale  from  Victor  Hugo,  may  the  readers  of  wonderful  in- 
cidents'woo  terror  to  delight'  them.  The  attention  is  aroused,  and  maintain- 
ed to  a  frenzied  state  of  excitement  anxious  to  be  satisfied  with  similar  de- 
tails."—jJm.  Sentinel. 

Vol.  VII. 

TALES  OF  THE  CARAVANSERAL 

THE   KHAN'S  TALE. 

BY  J.  B.  FRAZIER. 


New  Works,  publislied  Tl>y  Carey,  liea,  &>  Blancliard* 


Cooper's  New  Novel. 

THE  HEADSMAN, 

A  New  Novel,  by  the  Author  of  the  Spy,  Pilot,  &c.    In  2  vols. 
12mo. 


THE  PARSON'S  DAUGHTER. 

BY  THEODORE  HOOK,  AUTHOR  OF  SAYINGS  AND  DOINGS,  &C. 

IN  2  VOLS.  12mo. 

"  We  proceed  to  assure  the  reader,  who  has  it  before  him,  that  he  will  enjoy 
an  intellectual  treat  of  no  mean  order.  The  principal  feature  of  its  excel- 
lence is  an  all-engrossing  interest,  which  interest  is  mainly  attributable  to  the 
extreme  vraisemblance  of  its  incidents,  and  the  fidelity  with  which  each 
character  supports  its  individuality.  In  it  there  is  as  much  invention  and 
originality  as  we  have  ever  met  with  in  a  modern  novel,  be  the  author  who 
he  may." — Metropolitan. 

"  The  moral  of  the  tale  carries  conviction  as  to  the  justness  of  its  applica- 
bility, and  the  incidents  flow  as  naturally  as  the  stream  of  events  in  every- 
day life."— /6id. 

"  Here  is  a  novel  from  a  deservedly  popular  author,  written  with  great  ease 
and  sprightliness." — Athenoiuin. 


SWALLOW    BARN, 

OR,  A  SOJOURN  IN  THE  OLD  DOMINION. 

In  2  vols.  12mo. 

"  We  cannot  but  predict  a  warm  reception  of  this  work  among  all  persons 
who  have  not  lost  their  relish  for  nature  and  probability,  as  well  as  all  those 
who  can  properly  estimate  the  beauties  of  simplicity  in  thought  and  expres- 
sion."— JVfeifl  York  Mirror. 

"  One  of  the  cleverest  of  the  last  publications  written  on  this  or  the  other 
Bide  of  the  Atlantic." — JVezo  York  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"The  style  is  admirable,  and  the  sketches  of  character,  men,  and  scenery, 
so  fresh  and  agreeable,  that  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  they  are  drawn  from 
nature." 


THE  DOMINIE'S  LEGACY, 

Consisting  of  a  Series  of  Tales  illustrative  of  the  Scenery  and 
Manners  of  Scotland.     In  2  vols.  12mo. 

*'  These  pages  are  pictures  from  scenes  whose  impress  of  truth  tells  that  the 
author  has  taken  them  as  an  eye-witness;  and  many  are  rich  in  quiet,  sim- 
ple pathos,  which  is  evidently  his  forte." — Literary  Gazette, 


GALE  MIDDLETON,  A  Novel,  by  Horace  SMirn,  Author  of 
Brarnbletye  House,  &.c     In  2  vols.  12mo. 


TREVALYAN,  A  Novel,  by  the  Author  of  Marriage  in  High 
Life.    In  2  vols. 


New  Works,  pii1>lisIiLed  l>y  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blauchard* 


DELOKAINE, 

A  Novel,  in  2  Vols. 

BY  W.  GODWIN,  AUTHOR  OF  CALEB  WILLIAMS,  &C.  &C. 

"  We  always  regarded  the  novels  of  Godwin  as  grand  productions.  No  one 
ever  more  forcibly  portrayed  the  workings  of  the  mind,  whether  it  were  in  its 
joyous  hilarity  of  happiness,  or  in  the  sublime  agonies  of  despair.  His  tales, 
if  we  may  so  express  it,  have  each  but  one  character,  and  one  end  ;  but  that 
character,  how  all-absorbing  in  interest,  and  how  vividly  depicted;  and  that 
end,  how  consistent  with  its  preliminaries,  how  satisfactory,  and  how  beauti- 
ful !" — Metropolitan. 


FORTUNES  OF  PERKIN  WARBECK.— a  romance. 

BY  MRS.  SHELLEY,  AUTHOR  OF   FRANKENSTEIN,  &C.  &C.      2  VOLS.  12mO. 

"  We  must  content  ourselves  by  commending  the  good  use  our  fair 
author  has  made  of  her  materiel,  which  she  has  invested  with  the  grace 
and  existence  of  her  own  poetical  imagination.  The  character  of  Monia 
is  a  conception  as  original  as  it  is  exquisite." — Lit.  Gazette. 

"  The  author  of  Frankenstein  has  made  a  romance  of  great  and  enduring 
interest.  We  recommend  Perkin  Warbeck  to  the  public  attention.  It 
cannot  fail  to  interest  as  a  novel,  while  it  may  impart  useful  instruction  as 
a  history." — Conu  Advertiser. 


ASMODEUS    AT    LARGE, 
A  FICTION. 

BY  BULWER,  AUTHOR  OF  PELHAM,  EUGENE  ARAM,  &C. 

"  This  is  another  admirable  production  from  the  prolific  pen  of  Mr.  Bulwer— 
distinguished  by  the  same  profundity  of  thought  and  matchless  humor  which 
are  so  happily  combined  in  ail  his  writings." — Baltimore  Weekly  Messenger. 

"  Our  readers  have  felt  that  the  impassioned  pen  of  the  author  of  Eugene 
Aram  has  not  lost  its  power  in  these  sketches." — JV.  Y.  American. 


pliss  ^unitxCn  Soijels,  eomiJlete. 

EMMA,  A  Novel,  by  Miss  Austen,  2  vols. 
SENSE  AND  SENSIBILITY,  2  vols. 
MANSFIELD  PARK, 
PRIDE  AND  PREJUDICE, 
NORTHANGER  ABBEY, 
PERSUASION, 

"There  are  few  works  of  fiction,  so  acceptable  in  republication  as  the  Nov- 
els of  Miss  Austen. 

"  They  never  weary,  their  interest  is  never  lost,  for,  as  in  the  prints  of  Ho- 
garth, we  find  fresh  matter  for  admiration  upon  every  renewal  of  our  ac- 
quaintance. In  her  works  the  scene  is  before  us  with  all  the  reality  of  the 
world,  and,  free  from  the  engrossment  of  acting  a  part  in  it,  we  discover  points 
of  interest  which  a  divided  attention  had  overlooked. 

"  Her  merit  considered,  her  perfection  in  one  style,  Miss  Austen  is  the  worst 
appreciated  Novelist  of  her  time.  The  Quarterly  Review,  (to  its  honor  be  it 
remembered,)  was  the  first  critical  authority  which  did  justice  to  her  merits, 
and  that  after  the  grave  closed  over  her  unconscious  and  modest  genius. 

"  It  is  remarkable  that  Scott,  who  noticed  with  praise  many  inferior  authors, 
never  mentioned  Miss  Austen." — Examiner. 


New  "Worlts,  piiWislied  Tby  Carey,  I<ea,  &-  Blaiicliard* 


LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS  OF  GERMAN  LIFE. 
In  2  Vols.  12mo. 

"  The  pictures  here  given  of  German  life  have  an  interest  which  to  U3  is  per- 
fectly irresistible." — Sunday  Times. 

"  The  work  under  our  notice  has  great  claims  to  the  consideration  of  every 
reader  who  likes  good  tales,  in  which  he  will  find  every  thing  in  keeping." — 
Jtletropclitan. 

"  These  most  original  stories  are  replete  with  incidents,  scenes,  and  char 
acters  that  will  dwell  upon  the  mind  they  have  amused;  some  of  them  have 
the  conciseness,  wit,  and  satirical  point,  of  Voltaire's  sparkling  romance,  but 
without  their  mockery  of  all  that  is  sacred  and  virtuous.  We  rise  from  their 
perusal  with  our  hearts  warmed  for  our  fellow-men,  and  with  our  love  and 
interest  increased  for  this  world." — Court  Magazine. 


THE    LAST    MAN. 

BY  MRS.  SHELLEY,  AUTHOR  OF  FRANKENSTEIN,  (fec.  2  VOLS.  12mO. 


DELAWARE, 

OR,    THE    RUINED    FAMILY. 

A  Novel,  in  2  Vols.  12mo. 

"  Delaware  is  a  work  of  talent  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  The  plot  is  full 
of  interest,  the  characters  are  sketched  with  vitality  and  vigor,  and  the 
style  is  neat  and  flowing  \.\\XQ\ig\\o\x\.:'— Edinburgh  Evening  Post. 

"  Delaware  is  a  tale  of  much  amusement  and  interest.  We  heartily  com- 
mend it  to  our  readers  as  a  very  pleasant  and  very  clever  work." — Lit.  Oa- 
ictte. 

"Delaware  is  an  original  novel  by  an  able  man." — Spectator. 

"  The  story  is  well  told,  the  characters  clearly  unfolded,  and  the  conclusion 
natural  and  satisfactory."— Jlthenecum. 


LONDON  NIGHTS  ENTERTAINMENTS, 

OR,  TALES  AND  CONFESSIONS. 

By  Leitch  Ritchie,  Author  of  Schinderhannes,  &c. 

In  2  Vols.  12mo. 

"  This  work  is  supposed  by  eminent  critics  to  be  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  the 
author." 

"  Mr.  Ritchie  is  by  far  our  best  writer  of  romantic  and  imaginative  tales," 
was  the  dictum  of  the  Literary  Gazette— and  the  Atlas  pronounces  him  "the 
Scott  of  the  short,  picturesque,  and  bold  story." 

"  The  power  of  fascinating  the  reader,  of  chaining  him  down,  as  it  were, 
while  his  fancy  is  tormented  by  terrible  imaginings,  is  the  principal  character- 
istic of  Mr.  Leitch  Ritchie's  pictures."— Zojidow  Weekly  Review. 


THE    REPEALERS. 

A  Novel.     By  the  Countess  of  Blessington. 
In  2  Vols.  12mo. 

"  The  Irish  scenes  are  entitled  to  warm  commendation,  they  are  written 
with  equal  good  feeling  and  good  sense ;  while  Grace  Cassidy  is  a  sweet  and 
touching  portrait,"  &c.  &c — Lit.  Gazette. 


New  Works,  published  by  Carey,  Lea,  &  Blanchard. 


L.ITTERATURE  FRAICCAISE. 


BIBLIOTHEQUE  CHOISIE  DE  LITTERATURE  FRANCAISE. 

SELECT  LIBRARY 

OF 

MODERN  FRENCH  LITERATURE. 

In  4  volumes,  12mo:  containing — 

LES  ECORCHEURS. 

CINQ  MARS. 

PARIS  ET  LES  PARISIENS. 
.      MEMOIRES  D'UN  APOTHECAIRE. 

HEURES  DU  SOIR, 

LES  ENFANS  D'EDOUARD. 

MINUIT  ET  MIDE,  &lc.  &c. 
Some  of  these  works  may  be  liad  separately. 


THE   DOOMED. 
A  NOVEL.     In  two  volumes,  12mo. 


AYESHA,  THE  MAID  OF  KARS. 

BY  MORIER,  AUTHOR  OF  ZOIIRAB,    &C.      2  VOLS.   12mO. 


THE   SUMMER    FETE. 

A  POEM,  WITH  SONGS. 

By  Thomas  Moore,  Esq.  Author  of  Irish  Melodies,  &c. 

"The  description  of  the  Fete  is  in  easy,  graceful,  flowing  verse,  and  the 
songs  with  which  it  is  interspersed  are,  unlike  many  of  those  which  that 
gifted  poet  has  published,  unexceptionable  in  their  moral  tendency." — N. 
Y.  Commercial  Advertiser. 

"  Many  of  the  songs  interspersed  are  pretty  and  pleasing,  and  savor  of 
the  usual  richness  of  sentiment  and  luxuriance  of  style  habitual  to  Moore. 
We  can  willingly  recommend  the  work  to  all  ladies,  and  lovers  of  good 
poetry." — American  Sentinel. 


MEN  AND  MANNERS  IN  AMERICA. 
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CHITTY'S  MEDICAL  JURISPRUDENCE. 
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